The U.S. House of Representatives has reprimanded Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib with a motion of censure over some anti-Israel comments, a sanction that is only less severe than expulsion under House rules. Tlaib, the only US parliamentarian of Palestinian descent, has consistently expressed positions that are close to the Palestinian cause and directed against Israel. According to the application, he is said to have spread false information, defended terrorism and supported the “destruction of the State of Israel.”
Tlaib’s statements cited in the motion include references to Israel as an apartheid country and the slogan “From River to Sea,” which seeks to support the creation of a Palestinian state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean without an Israeli in mind becomes a state that some consider anti-Semitic (Tlaib did not personally utter this slogan but shared a video of it being chanted by pro-Palestinian protesters). Tlaib defended herself by claiming that her criticism was always directed against the Israeli state and never against the Jewish population.
The motion was also approved by 22 Democratic MPs, seen by many as a sign of disunity within the party over how to behave in the conflict between Israel and Hamas: the party’s more left wing is increasingly calling for a ceasefire, while many MPs chose Israel support. “Motions of no confidence” are serious measures that were rarely used in the past and have only become more common in recent years.
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