US House censures Rashida Tlaib for ‘From the river to the sea,’ anti-Israel comments
Rashida Tlaib is the only US lawmaker with Palestinian roots
The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday voted 234-188 to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich), a move one step below expelling a House member, for widely-criticized comments she made about Israel.
The censure proposal by GOP representative Richard McCormick of Georgia accused Tlaib of “promoting false narratives” and calling for the destruction of Israel after she used the phrase “From the river to the sea” in a video posted to social media.
In the video, Tlaib also accused U.S. President Joe Biden of supporting “the genocide of the Palestinian people,” and called on him to back a ceasefire in the war between Israel and the Hamas terrorists in Gaza.
Tlaib later claimed that “From the river to the sea” is a “call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate.”
The phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is often used in anti-Israel demonstrations around the world and refers to the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, which encompasses all of Israel’s territory.
Before the vote on Tuesday, Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said the phrase was “widely understood as calling for the complete destruction of Israel.”
Tlaib took the House floor to defend herself, flanked by other members, including Reps. Andre Carson (D-Ind) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN), the two other Muslim lawmakers.
She refused to recant her earlier comments, saying that “trying to bully or censure me won’t work because this movement for a ceasefire is much bigger than one person.”
The resolution passed 234-188, with four voting present. Twenty-two Democrats joined with most Republicans to censure Tlaib, while four Republicans voted against it, along with most Democrats.
The All Israel News Staff is a team of journalists in Israel.
