Shanelle Jackson, Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s Democratic primary challenger in Michigan’s 12th district, accused the lawmaker of “antisemitic rhetoric” and championed the United States’ relationship with Israel in a recent interview.
Jackson, who is a former state legislator, told Jewish Insider that “when [Tlaib] gets that mic in front of her, she goes crazy and goes to many extremes. I really feel like it’s now or never as it pertains to being able to sort of shut her down and calm down some of the antisemitic rhetoric.”
She also implied that Tlaib has prioritized Palestinians over the needs of her constituents. “She obviously is carrying the water of Palestine in all that she does,” said Jackson. “Meanwhile, Detroiters, we don’t have a voice. It’s just the truth.”
Jackson has seemingly made support for Israel a central part of her campaign. “Just saying it real plain, I believe that the United States and Israel are sisters, and I can’t imagine living in a world where our nation didn’t have Israel’s back,” she told the website. “It’s heartbreaking, to be honest with you, to have Rep. Tlaib not even wanting to explore that path.”
Jackson’s support for Israel, and her opposition to Tlaib, has not gone unnoticed by Israel’s supporters online:
This isn’t the first time that Tlaib has been smeared as an antisemite by a member of her own party. After Tlaib argued against additional Iron Dome funding (and denounced Israeli apartheid) on the House floor last fall, Rep. Ted Deutch rose to attack her. “I cannot– cannot allow one of my colleagues to stand on the floor of the House of Representatives. … to label the Jewish Democratic state of Israel an apartheid state,” he declared angrily. “I reject it…. I say to my colleague who just besmirched our ally… We can have an opportunity to debate a lot of issues on the House floor. But to falsely characterize Israel… is consistent with those who advocate for the dismantling of the one Jewish state in the world.. When there’s no place on the map for one Jewish state, that’s antisemitism.”
Deutch’s comments were publicly applauded by the lobbying group Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) and Rep. Kathy Manning (D-NC) told the press that she wanted to associate herself with the remarks too. None of Tlaib’s Democratic colleagues defended her against the smears. JVP Action’s Beth Miller told Electronic Intifada that the attacks on Tlaib “were a despicable and horrifying display of the deep-seated anti-Palestinian racism that runs rampant in Congress.”
Tlaib currently represents Michigan’s 13th district but she decided to run in the newly drawn 12th after Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-MI) announced she would not seek another term. Areas in the 13th were split up between the two districts as a result of the change. “I am excited about the opportunity to expand our work to include more communities that want the same access to a better quality of life, including clean air and water, affordable housing, economic justice, and more,” said Tlaib in a statement.
So far Tlaib and Jackson are the only two candidates who have declared that they’re running. Tlaib was reelected easily in 2020.
The Jewish Insider piece also quotes David Rosenberg, president of the pro-Israel group CityPAC. “As a spiritual person, it seems like she just has a natural affinity for the land of Israel,” he said. “Shanelle fully appreciates the harm that Rashida Tlaib has done to Israel and to the Jewish community over the years and knows that it also harms her constituents. She would be a breath of fresh air for those who care about Israel and Jewish-related causes if she were to serve in Congress in Tlaib’s place.”
So Jackson’s beef is that Tlaib spends too much time standing up for the human rights of Palestinians and not enough time standing up for Detroit.
So her grand plan is to literally run on the single issue of defending Israel, Israeli Apartheid, and fighting for Jewish Israelis instead?
Bloody genius!
In that case why is she even bothering to primary Rep. Tlaib? She should rather run for a seat on the Knesset and be done with it.
Look, if Israel and its proxies in DC can’t tolerate two or three critics in the House of Representatives, when they have hundreds already in their back pocket and blindly guzzling their Kool-Aid, then their skin is even thinner than I thought.
The mere fact that she is kissing up to Israel to make political gain, and get the (usual) necessary support to win elections in the world’s greatest “democracy”, shows she has no self respect, no principles, and is willing to show support for a brutal occupier, over human rights. It seems in the political arena Jewish politicians (like Engel, Schumer, and others), are openly able to support, vote, and protect their mother country, but Rashid Tlaib stranding up for her people the Palestinians, is terrible and unacceptable. Politicians like Bowman and Eric Elders, have already got in line to kiss that large behind. They control us and we know it.
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For decades Israel has made a laughingstock of the mythical ‘peace process’ as more than 700,000 ‘settlers’ intruded into the illegally occupied Palestinian territories. Israel is in the process of taking over East Jerusalem, which was supposed to be the capital of an independent Palestinian state.
“US foreign policy has enabled and funded these actions by the Jewish state, which Israel proclaimed itself to be in 2018. The Jewish State Law made apartheid official, marginalizing Israel’s Arab population, 20 percent of the total, as well as the repressed Palestinians in the occupied territories.”
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“She also implied that Tlaib has prioritized Palestinians over the needs of her constituents. ‘She obviously is carrying the water of Palestine in all that she does,’ said Jackson. ‘Meanwhile, Detroiters, we don’t have a voice. It’s just the truth.’
Brings to mind:
America’s Foreign Policy Death Spiral – CounterPunch.org
COUNTERPUNCH, DECEMBER 23, 2021
America’s Foreign Policy Death SpiralBY WALTER L. HIXSON
EXCERPT:
“Now, because the Biden administration is bowing to the Trump policy of torpedoing the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, the possibility of yet another Middle East war has emerged before the dust has even settled in Afghanistan. Israel of course is the only country in the Middle East that actually has nuclear weapons, which it developed in the 1960s in defiance of the US-led nuclear non-proliferation agreement (1968). Israel and its lobby—by far the most powerful lobby of any foreign nation in American history–prefer war to diplomacy hence the openly racist former Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu and now his successor, Naftali Bennett– who likes to boast about the number of Arabs he has killed–strive relentlessly to overturn the 2015 accord with Iran. The multilateral agreement was an excellent piece of diplomacy that would have kept Iran verifiably bomb-free in return for sanctions relief.
“Israel, now widely and accurately recognized as an apartheid state, has with the assistance of the AIPAC-led lobby—which controls the US Congress as fully as Putin controls the Russian duma—every intention of provoking a war with Iran. Blinken, a longtime dedicated Zionist, might just accommodate them, pulling sleepy Joe along, rather than resurrecting the nuclear accord.
“What is certain is that Congress will continue to give Israel, a tiny little country of some nine million people, more money than it gives any other country and even whole continents–$3.8 billion a year and $146 billion since 1948. This ongoing and absurd level of military assistance has made Israel the colossus of the Middle East, the world leader in targeted assassination with a specialization in waging indiscriminate warfare against Arabs especially in the captive Gaza strip, the site of repeated war crimes. (cont’d)
An old article but still relevant as of today. No wonder Israel is able to dictate to us what our foreign policies in the ME should be. Rep, Omar should have rephrased what she said, not apologized.
“The pro-Israel lobby’s contributions reach a majority of US politicians. In 2018, it spent money on 269 representatives’ and 57 senators’ campaigns, and gave to Democrats at a two to one ratio.
Among the top 2018 recipients were: New Jersey Democrat senator Bob Menendez, $548,507; Republican Texas senator Ted Cruz, $352,894; Democratic Ohio senator Sherrod Brown, $230,342; Democratic Wisconsin senator Tammy Baldwin, $229,896; and Democratic candidate for Senate in Texas, Beto O’Rourke, who received $226,690.
Democratic leaders who criticized Omar and demanded an apology also receive a high level of contributions from the pro-Israel lobby. Eliot Engel, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on which Omar sits, received $1.07m from the pro-Israel lobby during his career, more than he’s received from any other industry. In a Tuesday statement, he said “… it’s shocking to hear a Member of Congress invoke the anti-Semitic trope of ‘Jewish money.’”
Meanwhile, the pro-Israel lobby has contributed $514,000 to Pelosi throughout her career and it’s given $1.02m to Hoyer.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/15/pro-israel-donors-spent-over-22m-on-lobbying-and-contributions-in-2018