NY Times: Rashida Tlaib a Victim of ‘Vicious’ GOP Criticism; Israel ‘Bombing Civilians’

This issue will be available in the New York Times Sunday magazine features “What Rashida Tlaib Represents.” The author Rozina Ali is working on a book about the history of “Islamophobia” in the United States, so it’s no surprise she produced a long (5,000 words), extremely sympathetic profile of the left-wing “Squad” member Rep. Rashida Tlaib, while accusing her pro-Israel critics of viciousness. (It’s a habit at the Times to defend Tlaib and fellow “Squad” member Rep. Ilhan Omar.)

Last May, following protests in East Jerusalem over planned evictions of Palestinians, Hamas started firing rockets toward Tel Aviv, and Israeli airstrikes pounded residential buildings in the Gaza Strip. Shortly after, a group of nine Democratic lawmakers, all longstanding Israel supporters, took to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives to reaffirm the country’s right to defend itself. “We have a duty as Americans to stand by the side of Israel in the face of attacks from terrorists,” Elaine Luria, a representative from Virginia, said, “who again, have the same goal in mind: to kill Jews.”

A dozen more Democrats spoke later that night — also to challenge the legality of funnelling almost $4 billion per year to a nation that was bombing civilians. “Do Palestinians have a right to survive?” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York Democrat, said. “Do we believe that? And, if so, we have a responsibility to that as well.”

….

Tlaib has been criticized, sometimes viciously, by Republicans and pro-Israel Democrats for calling Israel an “apartheid regime,” and for her support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which aims to end military occupation by exerting economic pressure on Israel. Fox News’ favorite quarry, Tlaib has been called antisemitic because she criticizes Israeli policies.….

But Tlaib’s arrival on the national stage has also coincided with an opening, albeit a small one, within the Democratic Party to challenge the United States’ Israel policy….

Tlaib’s definition of “Islamophobia” is awfully broad:

The time she was born to the Somalia native [Rep. Ilhan]They became the first Muslim woman to be elected in the House when Omar was elected in November. “I guess I was naïve,” Tlaib told me, “in not understanding how bipartisan Islamophobia is in Congress.” It was the subtle things, she said: colleagues shocked to know that most American Muslims are Black, or stereotypes of Muslim women being submissive. Omar was approached by a colleague who touched Omar’s hijab. Besides ignorance, Tlaib said, “I think there’s a tremendous amount of fear.”

Ali is able to start the Israel-Palestinian story at the beginning of 2014, ignoring the lengthy pattern of Palestinian suicide bombings in Israel and the terrorism inside Israel.

The beginning of this shift roughly coincides with the resumption of the active conflict in 2014, when Israel launched a major military operation in the Gaza Strip after the kidnapping and murder of several Israeli teenagers by the Hamas militant organization….

When Tlaib argued against providing Israel money for its “Iron Dome” program to protect itself from Palestinian rockets, and called Israel an “apartheid regime,” Ali personally commiserated.

Afterward, Tlaib told me, her colleagues “whispered, ‘Are you OK?’ The whispering needs to stop,” she said, “and they need to speak up and say, ‘That was wrong.’” [Rep.] Hoyer told me he didn’t consider Tlaib’s remarks anti-Semitic, but thought they were “harsher than they needed to be.”