The Slander Against Rashida Tlaib Proves Her Point
After Rashida Tlaib complained about anti-Palestinian bias in elite circles, politicians and journalists spent days defaming her using a fake quote. It’s the kind of mendacious treatment that has become the norm against pro-Palestine voices since October 7.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) speaks during a news conference about the Justice for All Act outside the Capitol on March 9, 2023, in Washington, DC. (Drew Angerer / Getty Images)
Another week, another ridiculous, ginned-up controversy aimed at the US Congress’s sole Palestinian American member.
Over the weekend, a clearly coordinated smear campaign got rolling against Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), centered on comments she had made about Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel’s outrageous decision to charge protesters on the University of Michigan campus with felonies. Here is what she said:
We’ve had the right to dissent, the right to protest. We’ve done it for climate, the immigrant rights movement, for black lives, and even around issues of injustice among water shutoffs. But it seems that the attorney general decided if the issue was Palestine, she was going to treat it differently, and that alone speaks volumes about possible biases within the agency she runs. . . . I think people at the University of Michigan put pressure on her to do this, and she fell for it. I think President [Santa] Ono and Board of Regent members were very much heavy-handed in this. It had to come from somewhere.
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