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“The U.S. House voted [last] Tuesday to censure Democratic Representative Rashida Tlaib, Congress's lone Palestinian-American lawmaker, for comments she made regarding Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza…
“The measure specifically cited a video Tlaib published on social media containing the phrase ‘from the river to the sea,’ a pro-Palestinian rallying cry that is viewed by many Jews as antisemitic and calling for Israel's eradication. She also enraged many fellow Democrats on Friday when she posted a video accusing President Joe Biden of supporting ‘the genocide of the Palestinian people.’” Reuters
The right supports the censure and condemns Tlaib’s comments.
“You can’t chant or endorse the chant, ‘no peace on stolen land’ and then insist you’re calling for ‘peaceful coexistence.’ You just literally said you’re not willing to peacefully coexist with somebody else because you perceive them as living on land stolen from you. And everyone knows that the Palestinians and groups such as Hamas see all of Israel as ‘stolen land.’…
“Nor is the chant ‘from the river to the sea’ a call for ‘peaceful coexistence.’ The river and sea in question are the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, effectively the eastern and western borders of the state of Israel for the past 75 years. In the minds of those chanting the slogan, what happens to all the people currently living ‘from the river to the sea’? Do they just choose to move away? Do they get somewhere else as compensatory homeland? Because we’ve seen how Hamas wants to clear out that area…
“Twenty-two Democratic House members were right, on Tuesday, to join Republicans in censuring Tlaib. The situation is bad and tense enough without her claiming that the U.S. policy of supporting Israel — unchanged through administrations in both parties — amounts to genocide. The fires of extremism and rage are burning, and Tlaib is grabbing the gasoline.”
Jim Geraghty, Washington Post
“Putting ‘From the river to the sea’ at the center of the censure motion was important, and was foreshadowed by a specific type of response that bodes well for the American Jewish community… “When Tlaib tweeted ‘From the river to the sea,’ Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen responded that the slogan ‘is a call for eliminating the state of Israel.’ When Tlaib defended it as ‘an aspirational call for freedom,’ Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz posted, correctly: ‘This phrase means eradicating Israel and Jews. Period. Dressing it up in a new PR ploy won’t change that.’…
“Washington Rep. Kim Schrier: ‘This expression is a call for the elimination of the State of Israel.’ What these responses have in common is what they are missing: equivocation.”
Seth Mandel, Commentary
“When it comes to the ‘river to the sea’ phrase, there are likely many American activists using it ignorantly believing that it means what Tlaib is pretending it means. However, the fact remains the phrase is a call for genocide against the Jewish people and has been used by Hamas and other antisemitic extremist groups to rally support for this murderous cause…
“Tlaib put on a good show, acting as if she is pushing for coexistence. But given her past statements against Israel and the Jewish people, it is too difficult for me to believe she is speaking out of naivete and ignorance – she knows what she is doing.”
Jeff Charles, RedState
The left generally opposes the censure, but is divided about Tlaib’s comments.
The left generally opposes the censure, but is divided about Tlaib’s comments.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) writes, “In the history of the U.S. House of Representatives, the overwhelming number of censures have been for conduct: taking bribes, embezzling funds, assaulting other Members, engaging in mail fraud, and having sex with pages. The only kinds of speech that have ever been punished have been true threats of violence towards other Members, fighting words on the floor towards other Members, and incitement to insurrection and secession…
“The minute we start punishing the content or viewpoint of Members’ political speech, the process inescapably loses its legitimacy and becomes just a partisan weapon.”
Jamie Raskin, The Nation
Some argue, “It’s true that Hamas uses ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ and similar slogans. But the phrase predates Hamas and is also widely used by advocates of a single democratic state with equal rights for Israeli Jews, Palestinian Muslims and Christians, Thai and Indian guest workers, and everyone else who lives there. Tlaib has made it very clear that she belongs to this camp…
“The resolution claims that the slogan entails ‘Israel’s destruction and denial of its fundamental right to exist,’ but it’s never been clear to me what it means to say that a state has a right to exist. Did Czechoslovakia have a right to exist? The Confederacy?… In this case, we aren’t even talking about Israel breaking up or fusing with some other state… The contemplated transformation would be more like South Africa ceasing to be a ‘white state’ in the 1990s…
“Polls show that around 10 percent of Israelis agree with the call for a ‘single democratic state.’… A much higher percentage, unfortunately, endorses the idea of a ‘single state without equal rights to Palestinians’ — which has been the status quo in the country since 1967. The whole point of calling for Palestinians to be ‘free’ throughout this territory is precisely that, right now, they lack freedom and equal rights.”
Ben Burgis, Jacobin
Others argue, “At a moment when many Palestinians are taking pains to distinguish their cause from that of Hamas—whose actions triggered a brutal Israeli-military response that is killing innocent civilians in Gaza—Tlaib is defending one of the terror group’s preferred tropes…
“Last week, FBI Director Christopher Wray offered deeply disturbing testimony about how the threat of terrorism has grown in the United States after the Hamas attacks of October 7… Anti-Semitic harassment has spiked. A young Palestinian boy was murdered because of his identity. Individuals can be radicalized to the point of violence, even if their reasoning is muddled. When the language of holy war is invoked, compromise and de-escalation become impossible.”
Juliette Kayyem, The Atlantic
Cats Make Nearly 300 Different Facial Expressions.
Smithsonian Magazine
