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Rashida Tlaib Holds Nakba Day Event in Senate Building

The event took place in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Hearing Room, a committee chaired by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
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May 11, 2023
Zach Gibson / Getty Images

Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) held her Nakba Day event after all on May 10 inside a Senate office building.

Jewish Insider reporter Marc Rod tweeted that the event took place in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Hearing Room, a committee chaired by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Rod, who attended the event, tweeted that Sanders sponsored the event; The New York Post noted that a source told them “that Senate committee chairs are responsible for approving rooms used for events.” However, The Jerusalem Post reported that Sanders was not at the event.

Initially, the event was going to be held in the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center until Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) canceled it. But McCarthy does not have any jurisdiction over a Senate building, Rod noted. Sanders told Rod, “Members of the United States Congress in a democratic society have a right to hold a meeting, and I think it’s outrageous that Speaker McCarthy threw them out of a room they had reserved.”

Rod also tweeted that at the “standing room only” event, Tlaib accused “Israeli police of a ‘sustained campaign of terror’ at the Temple Mount.” She also said during the event that, according to The New York Post, “The nakba never ended. Each year our country sends billions to explicitly maintain an apartheid state and support ethnic cleansing without a second thought.” Additionally, Tlaib said that “no child should ever have to worry what will fall from the sky,” per The Jerusalem Post.

Representative Cori Bush (D-MO) also attended the event, per Rod.

In response to McCarthy’s tweet announcing the cancellation of the event, Tlaib tweeted: “Let the headlines read ‘McCarthy tries to erase Palestine but fails.’”

 

Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), ranking member of the HELP Committee, told Rod that he “wholeheartedly” objected to the use of the committee’s room “for this divisive event.” “The Capitol Ground should not be used as a pedestal to legitimize anti-Semitic bigotry,” he said. A GOP spokesperson also told Rod that Cassidy “was unaware and not consulted in the Chair’s decision to permit the use of the committee room for this event.”

The New York Post reported that they have a source close to Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) saying that the Senate Majority Leader was not aware that the Senate building was being used for the event.

Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV) denounced the event in a statement to Rod, “As Americans celebrate the 75thanniversary of the founding of Israel, calling the establishment of the world’s only Jewish state a ‘catastrophe’ is deeply offensive, and I strongly disagree with holding the event on Capitol Hill. Israel was founded as a refuge for the Jewish people seeking millennia of antisemitic persecution and violence. Let me be absolutely clear: the United States is and will always remain a stalwart ally of the State of Israel.”

Anti-Defamation League (ADL) CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted, “It is disgraceful that @SenSanders allowed this event by @RepRashida to be held in our nation’s Capitol. Real conversations are needed around a path to peace, but not with groups & individuals who espouse antisemitism. We call on the Senate to condemn this event.”

William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, tweeted: “It is outrageous that the hallowed halls of Congress would be used to promulgate the false narratives + historical revisionism of Israel-haters. Clearly they are more interested in demonizing the Jewish State than fostering understanding and common ground in the pursuit of peace.”

Dumisani Washington, founder and CEO of Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel, tweeted: “With an official #Nakba (anti-Israel) event being held at the State Capitol today, the US government now fully reflects the antisemitism on its college campuses and universities — where these ‘Progressive’, Israel-hating political leaders are being produced.”

Israellycool Israel Advocacy Executive Director David Lange tweeted, “Remember, this was happening as millions of @BernieSanders’ fellow Jews were under attack from Islamic Jihad rockets being fired from #Gaza. Bernie, you are a DISGRACE!”

Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli tweeted in response to Tlaib, “Let’s remember together the founding father of the Palestinian national movement, the mufti Amin al-Husseini. A mass murderer and the architecture of the ‘Nakba.’” He went onto outline the relationship between al-Husseini and Adolf Hitler before concluding: “In 1946 the Holy War Army was established under the auspices of the Mufti and the Supreme Arab Committee of the Arabs of Palestine, it was the main fighting force in the first stages of Israel’s War of Independence, happily this army established by an ally of the Nazis was destroyed but its sick ideology is still with us.”

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