Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) reiterated a call for the U.S. to stop sending weapons to Israel on Monday as Israeli forces have launched an all-out assault on Lebanon in the 12th month of their genocide in Gaza.
In response to the American embassy in Beirut advising that U.S. citizens flee Lebanon amid Israel’s major escalation of attacks on the country, Tlaib quipped, “It’s easier to stop sending the Israel government weapons to conduct its genocidal wars than it is to evacuate every American in Lebanon.”
Lawmakers and advocates for Palestinian rights have long been calling for the U.S., Israel’s largest benefactor, to end weapons transfers to Israel as it has carpet bombed Gaza. But U.S. politicians have been steadfast in their support of Israel as it’s deployed U.S. weapons to kill at least 41,000 Palestinians, and likely far, far more, over the past year.
These calls are now growing more urgent as Israel has launched a renewed raid of the occupied West Bank and a major escalation of its war on Lebanon. In the past week, Israel has killed hundreds of Lebanese people, including dozens of children, and wounded thousands more with a device explosion attack and air raids on Monday; Israeli forces have deployed many of the same tactics they’ve used on Gaza to carry out and supposedly “justify” their massacres of civilian centers.
Tlaib’s and other advocates’ calls to end arms transfers are in line with international law; the International Court of Justice has ordered Israel to end its occupation of Palestine and UN member states to do everything in their power to prevent more settler violence from Israel.
Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress and one of the most outspoken critics of Israel among U.S. lawmakers, has been under attack following the device explosions last week. On Friday, the far right National Review ran an Islamophobic cartoon, drawn by a Detroit News writer and cartoonist, aimed at attacking Tlaib.
The cartoon depicted an illustrated Tlaib saying, “Odd. My pager just exploded,” in reference to the pagers that Israel detonated across Lebanon last week. Though many civilians were injured and killed by the attack, Zionists have justified it as one targeting the armed political group Hezbollah; the implication, then, is that Tlaib is a member of Hezbollah.
The bigoted cartoon immediately drew condemnation for drawing on her heritage to imply, without any evidence whatsoever, that Tlaib has ties to the Lebanese group Hezbollah, invoking old Islamophobic tropes. The cartoon circulated online, with right-wing satire news outlet Babylon Bee making a similar accusation.
Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism has been on the rise amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Tlaib said that the cartoon was a prime example of the type of racism that is endangering Muslim and Arab communities across the country.
“Our community is already in so much pain right now. This racism will incite more hate and violence against our Arab and Muslim communities, and it makes everyone less safe,” Tlaib said. “It’s disgraceful that the media continues to normalize this racism.”
Other lawmakers condemned the cartoon. Rep. Cori Bush (D-Missouri), who recently lost her primary due to a fierce, $8.5 million dollar campaign by the pro-Israel lobby, said it was “Vile. Racist. Islamophobic trash.” She added that the publications involved “chose hate over truth” and “should be ashamed for spewing this filth, betraying any shred of journalistic integrity.”
But some Democratic lawmakers and figures piled on. Michigan’s Democratic attorney general, Dana Nessel, supposedly condemned the cartoon — while at the same time accusing Tlaib of antisemitism, without evidence.
“Rashida’s religion should not be used in a cartoon to imply that she’s a terrorist. It’s Islamophobic and wrong,” Nessel said on social media. “Just as Rashida should not use my religion to imply I cannot perform my job fairly as Attorney General. It’s anti-Semitic and wrong.”
Other outspoken Zionists caught on, with people like CNN’s Jake Tapper and the Anti-Defamation League’s Jonathan Greenblatt repeating Nessel’s false accusations.
Nessel’s post drew outrage, as people asked her to point to an instance where Tlaib had implied that Nessel can’t act as attorney general because she is Jewish — which neither Nessel or her defenders could find an example of. Rather, people pointed to when Tlaib had criticized Nessel for siccing law enforcement on pro-Palestine protesters at the University of Michigan this spring, saying that it was disappointing that Nessel would weaponize her role to punish pro-Palestine protesters.
The cartoon was published the same week that a Republican senator invoked similar Islamophobic and anti-Arab tropes against the leader of the Arab American Institute — who was, ironically, testifying in a hearing about stopping the rise of hate crimes in the U.S. The vitriolic senator, John Kennedy (Louisiana), told the witness, Maya Berry, that she supports Hamas and Hezbollah even as she repeatedly said she didn’t — and then told her to “hide your head in a bag.”
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