Rashida Tlaib has been getting criticized for calling Donald Trump a “motherfucker” but Nada Elia writes that she is thankful for Tlaib’s willingness to challenge the pressure to be civil: “I am thankful for her for breaking taboos, and having the courage to say what many think. Let us remember what else she has spoken, which would be considered a “profanity” by her peers. She said the hitherto unspeakable, about Palestine: one country, because separate but equal doesn’t work anywhere.”
Looking back on this year, it is difficult to choose one moment, one tragedy, or one political decision that stands out among the rest. Palestinians witnessed a tumultuous year in 2018, as they saw hundreds killed from the West Bank to Gaza, their rights slowly stripped away inside Israel, and the heart of Palestinian identity, Jerusalem, pushed further out of reach. But as evidenced by the ongoing fight for the rights of refugees in Gaza’s Great March of Return, the fight against expulsion in places Silwan and Khan al-Ahmar, and the fight for equal rights as citizens in Israel, the fight for Palestinian rights continued as well.
Israel had its worst week in a long time in the US discourse. The two-state consensus is now in a complete shambles, with many Americans on both right and left beginning to advocate for one democratic state in Israel and Palestine, which of course would mean the end of what Benjamin Netanyahu calls “the one and only Jewish state.”
As the polls came to a close and the midterm results began rolling in this November, Palestinians at home and across the diaspora celebrated the election of one of their own, Democrat Rashida Tlaib of Michigan’s 13th Congressional District. Mondoweiss spoke to young Palestinian American women from across the country on what Rashida Tlaib’s win means to them, their hopes for her in congress, and the lasting impact of her election.
Clyde Haberman of the New York Times accuses Democratic congressional candidates Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar of being “hostile toward Israel and maybe … toward Jews in general” in a discussion at the Center for Jewish History. Neither Rabbi Jill Jacobs or Halie Sofier of the Democratic Jewish council pushed back against the smear.