Palestinian Congresswoman-elect Vows to Vote Against Israeli Aid

TEL AVIV – The first Muslim woman to be elected to Congress said on Monday she would “absolutely” vote against the U.S. providing military aid for Israel.

“Absolutely, if it has something to do with inequality and not access to people having justice. For me U.S. aid should be leverage,” Rashida Tlaib, who is a Palestinian American, told Britain’s Channel 4 News.

“I will be using my position in congress so that no country, not one, should be able to get aid from the U.S.,” she continued, “when they still promote that kind of injustice.”  She was smearing Israel by claiming “inequality” and a lack of “access” to “justice.”

Tlaib also outlandishly drew comparisons between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the civil rights movement in the U.S. She further claimed that modern day Detroit is a “reminder” of the civil rights movement.

“I grew up in Detroit where every single corner is a reminder of the civil rights movement,” Tlaib responded when questioned about her views on the conflict.

Tlaib’s comparison to the original civil rights mocement is entirely unfounded. Whereas African Americans were fighting for equal rights, Israel’s Basic Law enshrines equal rights for all its citizens, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, or any other factor. Those rights run the gamut from employment, medical care, housing, and education. As such, Israel’s Arab minority is represented in every sector of society; there are Arab Supreme Court justices and there are Arab parties in the Knesset.

“So much is about let’s choose a side. I am for making sure that every single person there has every right to thrive,” she added.

The Detroit native, born into a family of Palestinian immigrants, won her district’s Democratic nomination for Michigan’s 13th Congressional district on August 7. The area has one of the largest Muslim and Arab-American communities in the United States.

Tlaib is the default winner since no one ran in the Republican primary.

“This makes us proud — as the Tlaib family, residents of Beit Ur, as Palestinians, as Arabs and as Muslims, that a simple girl reaches such a position,” her uncle Bassam Tlaib said after Rashida’s win.