Forward Opinion Editor Batya Ungar Sargon insinuated Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib shared anti-Semitic material on social media, when they posted a cartoon by Carlos Latuff showing Trump and Netanyahu silencing them. This is not the first time Ungar Sargon has led the assault on those very few who dare challenge Israeli policy head-on.
A ‘New York Times’ analysis of the Israeli government’s refusal to allow two American congresswomen to visit the West Bank embraces a central claim of the Israel lobby, that bipartisan support for Israel is critical to US national security, and leaves out Trump’s largest donors, the Adelsons, for whom Israel is the overriding issue.
By banning Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar from visiting the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, Israel has created a political upheaval in the U.S., with many Americans now favoring cutting aid to the country. One thing achieved this result: The women support BDS, and they have demonstrated the power of the nonviolent campaign.
The Israeli Minister of the Interior says that Rashida Tlaib doesn’t love her grandmother as much as she hates Israel, a charge that goes back to the famous hasbara claim that there will only be peace when Palestinians “love their children more than they hate us.”
The long term political ramifications of Netanyahu’s decision to deny entry to Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar remain to be seen. What is clear, however, is that the latest efforts by the Israeli premier to quash the growing BDS movement have backfired.
U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman vilified the BDS campaign on PBS News Hour last night: “leaders of the BDS movement are trying — not the try to get Israel to change this or that policy, but to try to remove every Jew from the Middle East. Just as Hitler wanted a Jewish-free Europe.” Host Amna Nawaz allowed the false characterization to stand, and also echoed a characterization of Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib as anti-Semites.
The Netanyahu government barred Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar over their support for BDS, but earlier this week Israeli lawmakers sent a letter to Congress saying the two-state solution is more dangerous than BDS. Will Netanyahu bar two-state supporters next?
US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib was told by Israel today that she could visit her family on the West Bank so long as she does not “promote boycotts against Israel” on the trip. She has refused the offer. “I have decided that visiting my grandmother under these oppressive conditions stands against everything I believe in–fighting against racism, oppression & injustice.”
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave details behind the decision to ban Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar from entering Israel and the West Bank on a Congressional delegation this afternoon in a statement that alleged terrorism ties on the part of the trip’s coordinator and said “the sole purpose of their visit is to harm Israel and increase incitement.”
The Democratic field for president wants to blame Donald Trump for Israel’s decision to bar Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib from entering Israel, not Benjamin Netanyahu.