Speaker Kevin McCarthy Forbids Rashida Tlaib from Hosting Anti-Israel Event at the Capitol By Eric Lendrum
On Tuesday, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) sabotaged efforts by Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) to host an anti-Israel event at the U.S. Capitol, featuring anti-Semitic rhetoric by pro-Palestine groups.
According to the New York Post, Tlaib originally planned to host at least nine anti-Israel groups for an event titled “Nakba 75 and the Palestinian People,” which would be held at the Capitol Visitor Center. But McCarthy announced in a tweet that he was shutting down the event, simply saying “this event in the US Capitol is canceled.”
“Instead,” McCarthy continued, “I will host a bipartisan discussion to honor the 75th anniversary of the US-Israel relationship.”
“Nakba,” the word featured prominently in the title of Tlaib’s canceled event, is the Arabic word for “catastrophe,” which aligns with the planned speeches by Tlaib’s groups that would have described the founding of the state of Israel as a “catastrophe.”
“May 15th marks 75 years since the beginning of the Nakba, which means ‘catastrophe,’” the description for the now-cancelled event read. “Seventy-five years ago, Zionist militias and the new Israeli military violently expelled approximately three-quarters of all Palestinians from their homes and homeland in what became the state of Israel.”
At least one group that was supposed to attend, Jewish Voice for Peace, is documented as having openly praised terrorists, with the Anti-Defamation League describing it as a “radical anti-Israel activist group that advocates for a complete economic, cultural and academic boycott of the state of Israel,” and a group that “celebrates figures who have been convicted of engaging in terrorism.”
“It’s wrong for members of Congress to traffic in anti-Semitic tropes about Israel,” said McCarthy in a later statement to the press. “As long as I’m Speaker, we are going to support Israel’s right to self-determination and self-defense, unequivocally and in a bipartisan fashion.”
Israel first declared its independence on May 14th, 1948, and was ultimately admitted to the United Nations nearly one year later, on May 11th, 1949.
Comments are closed.
