by Adam Kredo in The Washington Free Beacon
Democratic congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) is fundraising off the anti-Semitic event she hosted last week, telling supporters she needs the money to battle “Israel’s apartheid regime.”
Tlaib’s fundraising pitch references the “Squad” member’s controversial push to host an event mourning Israel’s creation as a “catastrophe.” Tlaib in the pitch boasts about her ability to hold the anti-Semitic event last week, even after it was initially canceled by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.), as the Washington Free Beacon first reported. After McCarthy intervened on the House side, Tlaib enlisted socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) to reserve her space on the Senate side of the Capitol, where McCarthy has no jurisdiction.
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The event—a celebration of the “Nakba,” a Palestinian term for the creation of Israel that loosely translates as “catastrophe”—drew widespread condemnation from House and Senate Republicans. Democratic leaders in both chambers, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), remained mostly silent.
“In an attempt to suppress the truth and silence Palestinian voices, McCarthy tried to stop the event by blocking the use of the auditorium it was planned for,” Tlaib wrote in the fundraising email. “But he failed to silence those voices or their truth, as the event proceeded in a different location with a packed, standing-room-only audience.”
In the email to her supporters, Tlaib pledges to confront “Israel’s apartheid regime” and work to cut off the billions of dollars the United States allocates to protect Israel from terrorism.
“The U.S. government enables and perpetuates the Israeli government’s war crimes and massacres with U.S.-made weapons and billions in unconditional funding,” Tlaib wrote in the pitch, asking supporters to “chip in” so that she can “stand up to U.S. and Israeli attempts to silence and erase Palestinians.”
Tlaib also claimed she faces “constant targeting and bullying by extremists in Congress.”
Tlaib was joined at last Wednesday’s event by a cadre of anti-Israel groups that have defended terrorism and support the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which wages economic warfare on the world’s only Jewish state.
Among them was Jewish Voice for Peace, a “radical anti-Israel activist group” that backs BDS and has come under fire for glorifying Palestinian terrorism. Emgage Action, another BDS supporter that claims Israel is an “apartheid state,” and Americans for Justice in Palestine Action, an advocacy group that claims Jewish money is infecting politics, also sponsored the event.
Jewish and pro-Israel advocacy groups denounced Tlaib’s event and called on leaders in both parties to issue a condemnation.
While McCarthy stepped forward after receiving a letter from the Coalition for Jewish Values, an advocacy group composed of several thousand rabbis, Schumer and Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) dodged questions about the event.
“Your office failed to respond to this outrage as it happened,” the coalition wrote to Schumer on Thursday, after the event took place in the Senate. “Will you now publicly condemn this propaganda exercise and its open incitement against Jews, as we requested of you two days ago? You surely know that further silence sends a troubling message of its own.”
Schumer also took heat from Senate Republicans.
“Chuck Schumer’s decision to allow Bernie Sanders to host Rashida Tlaib’s hateful, anti-Semitic event in the HELP Committee room is disgusting,” Sen. Rick Scott (R., Fla.) said in a statement. “It is a truly sad day for our country when Democrats so blatantly turn their backs on Jewish Americans by uniting around an anti-Semite who not only spreads hate but actively uses her position as a member of Congress to advance an ugly agenda with the purpose of degrading our special relationship and strong alliance with Israel.”
Originally published in The Washington Free Beacon