Rashida Tlaib's Anti-Israel Hatefest in the Senate | Opinion

Rep. Rashida Tlaib's (D-MI) calling card is Jew-hatred. She's built her career around it. And for four years, not only did she pay no price for her vile bigotry; she was rewarded for it.

Last September, Tlaib promised that she would "push back" against people who both claim to be progressive and support Israel's right to exist. In her words, "Among progressives it has become clear that you cannot claim to hold progressive values yet back Israel's apartheid government, and we will continue to push back and not accept this idea that you are progressive except for Filistin (Palestine) any longer."

Progressive Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) strongly protested Tlaib's statement. The Florida congresswoman said that calling people's progressive credentials into question over their support of Israel is "an outrageous litmus test" and "nothing short of antisemitic."

Progressive Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) also agreed.

But Tlaib paid no price. She was protected. Wasserman Schultz and Nadler, on the other hand, were pilloried. One senior blogger at MSNBC referred to their protests of Tlaib as "Trumpian misinformation."

In 2019, commenting on the genocide of European Jewry during the Holocaust, Tlaib said, "There's always kind of a calming feeling I tell folks when I think of the Holocaust, and the tragedy of the Holocaust."

She went on to explain that it was due to the Holocaust that her ancestors "lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, their human dignity, (and) their existence in many ways."

Here too, in the face of criticism of her from the American Jewish community, Tlaib's supporters in the media attacked the Jewish congressmen for criticizing her appalling bigotry. The Washington Post and Snopes both rushed to Tlaib's defense.

Previously, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) never censured Tlaib for her obvious Jew-hatred. Like her Jew-hating colleague Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Tlaib was rewarded for her antisemitism: Pelosi endorsed Tlaib in her primary race against a non-antisemitic opponent last year.

Given the backdrop of Tlaib's long winning streak on the Jew-hater ticket, it was a relief last week when she finally suffered a setback. Tlaib had planned to host an event marking the so-called "Nakba," the "catastrophe" of the modern state of Israel's establishment in 1948, at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Visitor's Center. But after the event was reported, and after receiving a request from a rabbinical group, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) stepped in last Tuesday and blocked the event.

"It's wrong for members of Congress to traffic in antisemitic tropes about Israel. 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 manner," McCarthy told The Washington Free Beacon's Adam Kredo.

McCarthy thereby used his prerogative as speaker to cancel Tlaib's event and host an event celebrating 75 years of American-Israeli friendship in its place.

A lot of Democrats who support Israel probably breathed a sigh of relief at McCarthy's action. The week prior, McCarthy had led a large bipartisan delegation of lawmakers to Israel to celebrate the Jewish state's 75th Independence Day. The lawmakers' visit was a genuine display of the depth of U.S. support on both sides of the partisan aisle for the U.S.-Israel alliance. For example, upon his return to Washington, former House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said, "This week, I was proud to join Speaker McCarthy, as well as Democrats and Republicans on my 19th visit to Israel. Together we reaffirmed our longstanding bipartisan consensus that strengthening the U.S.-Israel partnership is vital to the future success of our two nations, the region, and the world."

But congressional Democrats did not stand with McCarthy when he did to Tlaib what Pelosi should have done after her loathsome Holocaust comments in 2019. Instead, as Marc Rod from Jewish Insider reported, House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar expressed sorrow that McCarthy canceled Tlaib's meeting.

Aguilar didn't have long to mourn the loss of the event, however. Within hours, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) offered Tlaib use of his Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing room to hold her hatefest against the Jewish state.

Tlaib's event last Wednesday took place as Palestinian terrorists in Gaza lobbed hundreds upon hundreds of indiscriminate missiles at Israeli civilian population centers in the south and center of the country. As Rod reported, in her remarks before a packed room of Israel-haters who share her view that Jews have no right to national self-determination in their ancestral homeland, Tlaib accused Israeli police of a "sustained campaign of terror" against Muslim worshipers at the Temple Mount, slandered Israel as an "apartheid state," and asserted that U.S. military aid to Israel supports "ethnic cleansing."

The only Democrat who spoke out against Tlaib's event was Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV). Speaking to Jewish Insider, Rosen said, "calling the establishment of the world's only Jewish state a 'catastrophe' is deeply offensive, and I strongly disagree with allowing this event to be held on Capitol Hill."

Notably silent—and passive—throughout Tlaib's latest effort to mainstream Jew-hatred was Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). Schumer, who has long boasted of his pro-Israel bona fides and often refers to himself as a "shomer" (guardian) of Israel, didn't lift a finger to block Tlaib's hatefest. Schumer's staff insisted that the Senate majority leader had no prior knowledge of Sanders' plan to host the Tlaib event in his committee room. Regardless, Schumer did not speak out against the hatefest before it occurred and has remained silent about it in its aftermath.

The contrast between McCarthy's quick move to block Tlaib's antisemitic hatefest and Schumer's silence tells us something alarming about the state of play in the Democratic Party today.

Statements, campaign pledges, and voting records of Democratic lawmakers attest to the fact that most Democrats remain supportive of Israel and the U.S.-Israel alliance. But Pelosi's support for Tlaib's rise and Schumer's failure to oppose her antisemitic antics in the Senate make clear that the power in today's Democratic Party resides in the Tlaib-Omar wing. So long as the pro-Israel majority of elected Democrats remains silent, the position of antisemites in the Democratic Party will grow stronger—and the future of pro-Israel politicians in the party will grow dimmer.

Caroline B. Glick is a Newsweek columnist, the senior contributing editor of Jewish News Syndicate, and the diplomatic commentator for Israel's Channel 14. She is also the author of The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East, (Crown Forum, 2014). From 1994 to 1996, she served as a core member of Israel's negotiating team with the Palestine Liberation Organization.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.