Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.) entreated his colleagues “across the aisle” to join him in calling for Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s (D-MI) immediate removal from all congressional committees.
He made his plea in light of two new incidents involving antisemitism, arguing that “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was ’emboldening’ Tlaib’s dangerous, hateful bigotry,’ by remaining silent on the issue, according to conservative outlet Daily Wire.
The first incident related to Tlaib’s participation in an anti-Israel conference led by one of the nation’s most strident opponents of the Jewish state – American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) which featured other delegates with reported connections to Hamas, terrorism financiers, and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, according to a statement.
“Rep. Tlaib’s participation in this conference, coupled with her recently deleted retweet of a slogan calling for the elimination of Israel, are just the latest examples of a deeply disturbing pattern of antisemitism that has been on display since she was elected. Yet Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats refuse to condemn her heinous behaviour,” Reschenthaler said as cited by Breitbart.
The Pennsylvania representative remarked that he had seen firsthand where standing by and allowing antisemitism and intolerance to pervade American communities led, referencing the Tree of Life synagogue massacre in October 2018 that killed 11 and wounded six others.
Reschenthaler juxtaposed House Republican’s zero tolerance for hate speech in its ranks, highlighting that when GOP Congressman Steve King made “inexcusable racist remarks,” he received widespread condemnation from both sides of the aisle and Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy “rightfully stripped him of his committee assignments.”
The retweet – which Tlaib responded to in honor of “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, and then precipitously took down without comment – used a well-known phrase that calls for Israel’s elimination. It read: “From the river [Jordan] to the sea [Mediterranean], Palestine will be free.
It was a phrase that got Marc Lamont Hill in trouble with CNN, who dropped him as a Middle East analyst, despite his protestations that he was unaware of its provenance after he used it in a speech. He will shortly appear alongside Tlaib in an online symposium under the banner “Dismantling Antisemitism, Winning Justice,” which radical IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace groups have organized.
There is likely little hope for Tlaib’s censure. Fellow Squad member Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) who also spoke at the AMP conference escaped serious punishment and certainly did not lose her seat on the influential House Foreign Affairs Committee after she accused pro-Israel advocates of allegiance to a foreign country.
Reschenthaler could have made a third case of Tlaib’s alleged antisemitism. Shortly after presumptive President-elect Joe Biden announced that Antony Blinken would be his nomination for secretary of state, the congresswoman tweeted that she welcomed the appointment as long as he – a Jew – would not attempt to squash her First Amendment rights to condemn Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
