ZOA Deplores Rep. Tlaib’s Antisemitic “Nakba” Event & Latest Libelous Lies: Tlaib Must Be Condemned and Removed from Every U.S. House Committee
News Press Release
May 9, 2023

Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) President Morton A. Klein released the following statement:

Extremist Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)’s upcoming antisemitic “Nakba” event and latest libels demonstrated that Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan was absolutely correct to recently state that “Tlaib’s ignorance and hate towards Jews and Israel know no bounds.” Indeed, Tlaib’s frequent vicious libels of Jews and Israel render her unfit to serve in the U.S. Congress or on any House committee.

Tomorrow, Jew-hater Tlaib will be the featured speaker at a “Nakba 75” event that promotes the sick, twisted, hateful, genocidal concept that it is a “catastrophe” that Israel has managed to survive, and that the Arabs failed to totally annihilate Israel’s Jewish population and homeland in 1948 or in the 75 years since then. (In 1948, local Arabs and six invading Arab nations “only” managed to murder 1% of Israel’s population and injure 2% of Israel’s population. Arabs “only” managed to murder and maim thousands of more Jews since then.)

Tlaib’s “Nakba 75” event continues Rashida Tlaib’s other shameful efforts to label Israel’s survival a catastrophe. For instance, last year, Tlaib and six other radical “Squad” members introduced a “Nakba recognition” Congressional resolution (H. Res. 1123). Tlaib’s “Nakba” efforts grossly inflate Palestinian Arab refugee numbers; ignore that “Palestinian Arabs” originated outside Israel; ignore that under the U.S. and international definitions of refugees, Palestinian Arabs never qualified as “refugees”; ignore that the real refugees were close to one million Jews forced out of Arab lands where they had lived for millennia; and falsely accuse Israel of “ethnic cleansing” – when in fact Arabs left Israel voluntarily and upon the demands of Arab High Command leaders, who told the Arabs to leave to get out of the way of six Arab nations’ invasion to annihilate Israel’s Jews. Israel urged local Arabs to remain and live together in peace. Those who remained became Israeli citizens with equal rights.

(For ZOA’s detailed examination of the falsehoods that Tlaib’s “Nakba” and “Palestinian refugee” resolution and agenda are based on, see “Rep. Rashida Tlaib/et al’s Antisemitic ‘Nakba’ and ‘Palestinian Refugees’ Resolution,” ZOA, May 24-25, 2022, Part 1 and Part 2.)

Tlaib’s recent “Nakba” libels also include tweeting on May 3, 2023: “Speaker [Kevin] McCarthy wants to rewrite history but the apartheid state of Israel was born out of violence and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.”

Israeli Ambassador Erdan correctly responded (after noting that Tlaib’s ignorance and hate towards Jews and Israel know no bounds): “The facts are clear: the Arabs rejected the U.N.’s resolution to establish a Jewish state and started a war to annihilate [Israel]andTlaib is rewriting history, and her antisemitic lies ignore the fact that the only ethnic cleansing that took place [was] against the 850,000 Jews, who were expelled from Arab countries following Israel’s establishment.”

Disappointingly, in the midst of all this, President Joe Biden continues to praise Rashida Tlaib and her fellow antisemitic, anti-Israel Squad members. At an Eid-al-Fitr White House celebration on May 1, 2023, Biden praised Tlaib and Ilhan Omar for “looking beautiful tonight” and told them “G-d love you.”

Biden also publicly praised Israel-hater Tlaib on May 18, 2021 (when Israel was being attacked by 4,300 Hamas rockets, and Tlaib was calling for Biden to rescind an agreement to sell arms to Israel): “Rashid [sic], I want to say to you that I admire your intellect, I admire your passion and I admire your concern for so many other people. It is from my heart that I pray that your grand mom and family are well and I promise you I’m going to do everything to see that they are on the West Bank. You are a fighter and G-d thank you for being a fighter.”

Tlaib’s “Nakba 75” event is organized by a “who’s who” of worst antisemitic anti-Israel organizations that specialize in boycotting and libeling Jews and Israel, and engage in activities to destroy the Jewish state. These “Nakba 75” organizers include:

  • the Soros-funded U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) – the major anti-Israel boycott group in the U.S.;
  • the deceptively named, Soros-funded “Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU), which co-wrote the Movement 4 Black Lives’ libelous anti-Israel platform;
  • the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) (aka Quakers) – a virulent BDS group, whose anti-Israel boycott-targeting research was used by the “Mapping Project” to target American Jewish organizations, synagogues and schools;
  • Emgage Action – which hosted the “Muslim Summit” in 2020 in which then-candidate Joe Biden appeared with Jew-haters Linda Sarsour, Ilhan Omar, Salam al-Marayati, and Nihad Awad, and promised to take a series of hostile-to-Israel actions if Biden was elected;
  • the misnamed, Tides-funded “Jewish Voice for Peace” which promotes anti-Israel boycotts, false “war crimes” allegations and investigations against Israel, and embraces PFLP terrorists such as Rasmea Odeh (who was convicted for deadly terrorist bombings in Israel) and Ahmed Sa’adat (convicted for involvement in the murder of Israel’s Tourism Minister);
  • the Soros-funded “Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), which calls for anti-Israel boycotts, arms embargoes and war crimes investigations, and defended Mohammad El Halabi for diverting World Vision resources to Hamas;
  • Project48, which specializes in spreading the “Nakba” libel. Project48 appears to be supported by the viciously anti-Israel group “Foundation for Middle East Peace” (FMEP), which promotes Nakba, apartheid, medical apartheid and other falsehoods about Israel, and cutting off military assistance to Israel;
  • the antisemitic Virginia Coalition for Human Rights (VCHR), which promotes boycotts against “Israeli” (Jewish) companies doing business (e.g., installing solar panels) in Virginia;
  • anti-Israel lobby group, Americans for Justice in Palestine Action (AJP Action), whose director doubles as the director of the anti-Israel, Hamas-terrorists-supporting “American Muslims for Palestine” and appeared together with convicted terrorists and officials of designated terror groups Hamas and the PFLP to falsely accuse Israel and America of “apartheid” and praise Palestinian generations of “resistance” (a euphemism for terror);

The foregoing – as bad as they are – are all just partial mentions of the vicious anti-Israel, antisemitic activities of the groups who make common cause with Tlaib and organized Tlaib’s Nakba 75 event.

There needs to finally be consequences for Tlaib’s long line of hateful, antisemitic, anti-Israel activities. It is appalling that President Biden had publicly praised Tlaib. Biden must immediately retract his erroneous praise. Tlaib must be removed from every U.S. House Committee and publicly condemned by the Democratic House and Senate Leadership. We have been calling for this for several years now. See, e.g.,ZOA: Remove Jew-Haters from Congressional Committees: AOC, Tlaib, Omar, McCollum, etc. Endangered Jewish (and Arab) Lives Twice This Week,” Sept. 23, 2021.

  • Center for Law & Justice
    We work to educate the American public and Congress about legal issues in order to advance the interests of Israel and the Jewish people.
    We assist American victims of terrorism in vindicating their rights under the law, and seek to hold terrorists and sponsors of terrorism accountable for their actions.
    We fight anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias in the media and on college campuses.
    We strive to enforce existing law and also to create new law in order to safeguard the rights of the Jewish people in the United States and Israel.