After a contentious battle for the position, newly-minted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has made good on his promises to govern as a conservative and to punish Democrats for their broken precedents. Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff have been booted off the Intelligence Committee while Ilhan Omar is facing removal from the House Foreign Affairs Committee (if enough GOP squishes don’t save her).
But there’s another Democrat that has escaped McCarthy’s ire, and you’ve probably guessed by now I’m talking about Rashida Tlaib. A rabid anti-Semite and terrorist sympathizer, the Michigan congresswoman is not facing removal from her committees, and while I understand the reason why, I’m going to challenge it.
Let’s start with the logic behind what McCarthy is doing. He’s attempting to set a precedent that members won’t be removed from all committees for their bad behavior but will instead be restricted from those that deal most directly with national security. Tlaib’s top assignment has been the Oversight and Reform Committee, where she can make a lot of noise but has no access to sensitive information.
Ask yourself, are Democrats going to respect that precedent when they return to power? That’s rhetorical because we all know they aren’t going to respect that precedent. Besides, I believe Tlaib’s behavior is so uniquely bad, that there’s no reason to let her serve anywhere, especially given Marjorie Taylor Greene was stripped of all her assignments. I’d even go so far as to say Tlaib has been worse than Omar.
Let’s take a trip down memory lane to prove that point. Did you know that Tlaib’s 2018 campaign events were organized by actual terrorist financiers (The Washington Examiner)? She’s also been a keynote speaker for CAIR, a rabidly anti-Semitic Muslim group with deep connections to Hamas.
How in the world did this person end up in Congress?
Two men who held key positions at nonprofit groups that were found liable in a Hamas terror financing scheme helped organize campaign fundraising events for Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) in 2018.
The men, who organized events that were paid for by Tlaib’s campaign, were associated with a network of nonprofit groups that were found liable by a federal jury in 2004 for financing the terrorist slaying of an American teenager, David Boim, at a bus stop in the West Bank in 1996. A federal judge ordered the three groups to pay Boim’s parents a $156 million judgment for funding Hamas, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.
Past that, did you also know that Tlaib has continually pushed anti-Semitic blood libels, blaming Jews for the deaths of people even when those people were killed by Palestinians? In fact, she’s done that multiple times, going so far as to blame the death of an Israeli child at the hands of a Palestinian terrorist on the supposed “Israeli occupation.” More generally, Tlaib is always there to condemn Israel for merely defending itself from Palestinian terrorism.
Tlaib has even been shameless enough to use the Holocaust to condemn Israel, claiming that the horrific historical event gives her a “calming feeling.” Further, she claimed that Palestinians provided a “safe haven” for Jews during World War II. Of course, that’s completely untrue given the Palestinians collaborated with Hitler to kill Jews.
And lest anyone suggest Tlaib has changed, she is still showing herself to be a rabid anti-Semite. On Friday, a Palestinian terrorist committed a mass shooting outside a synagogue in Israel, killing seven people and injuring others. Tlaib did not directly condemn the killing, but when Israel retaliated by killing militants, she put this tweet out.
She’s got nothing to say when Palestinians murder Jews, but when Palestinian terrorists are killed in response, she’s boisterous in her condemnations. Sorry, but her history garners no benefit of the doubt. This woman is an anti-Semite who wants to see Jews killed, and you won’t convince me of anything else. That she actually has the Palestinian flag first in line at her congressional office only underscores the fact that she only sees the United States as a vehicle for her radicalism.
With all that said, while I’m glad McCarthy is playing hardball, and I’m not criticizing his performance so far, with some Democrats, he can always go harder. No one deserves to be barred from all committees more than Tlaib. Hopefully, that’s a battle that’s coming.