Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who was barred from entering Israel on Thursday, says she won’t accept the country’s new offer to allow her to visit her grandmother in the West Bank on humanitarian grounds.
“Silencing me & treating me like a criminal is not what she wants for me. It would kill a piece of me. I have decided that visiting my grandmother under these oppressive conditions stands against everything I believe in — fighting against racism, oppression & injustice,” Tlaib said Friday on Twitter.
Silencing me & treating me like a criminal is not what she wants for me. It would kill a piece of me. I have decided that visiting my grandmother under these oppressive conditions stands against everything I believe in–fighting against racism, oppression & injustice. https://t.co/z5t5j3qk4H
— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) August 16, 2019
In another Friday statement, Tlaib said “In my attempt to visit Palestine, I’ve experienced the same racist treatment that many Palestinian-Americans endure when encountering the Israeli government.”
Just In — Rep @RashidaTlaib: “I have therefore decided to not travel to Palestine and Israel at this time” pic.twitter.com/1TmT4sEAF6
— Alex Moe (@AlexNBCNews) August 16, 2019
Israel on Friday said that Tlaib could visit her family under the condition that she not restate her support for a boycott of Israel during the visit – a condition laid out by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman called the trip, supposed to start this weekend, “nothing more than an effort to fuel the BDS engine,” referencing the “boycott, divestment and sanctions” movement against Israel over the country’s treatment of Palestinians, who Omar and Tlaib have voiced support for. The decision to block the visit reversed a previous announcement in July, from Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer, that Israel would permit the women to enter out of respect for Congress. -Bloomberg
Tlaib rejected Netanyahu’s offer, saying that her family would not have wanted her to agree to Israel’s restrictive conditions and “bow down to their oppressive and racist policies.”
“When I won, it gave the Palestinian people hope that someone will finally speak the truth about the inhumane conditions. I can’t allow the State of Israel to take away that light by humiliating me,” Tlaib said earlier Friday.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/33DlKYq Tyler Durden