'Palestinian People Are Not Disposable,' Says Rashida Tlaib During House Censure Debate

Update:

U.S. House lawmakers voted Tuesday night to censure Tlaib. The vote was 234-188, with 22 Democrats joining almost all Republicans in approving the resolution. Four GOP lawmakers voted against the measure.

Earlier:

As the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday advanced a resolution to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib for affirming Palestinian human rights and opposing Israel's war on Gaza, the Michigan Democrat defended herself—and the people of her ancestral home—during an impassioned House floor speech.

"I'm the only Palestinian American serving in Congress... and my perspective is needed here now more than ever," Tlaib asserted. "I will not be silenced and I will not let you distort my words."

"Folks forget I'm from Detroit, the most beautiful, blackest city in the country where I learned how to speak truth to power even if my voice shakes," she added. "Trying to bully or censor me won't work because this movement for a cease-fire is much bigger than one person. It's growing every single day."

A motion to table Rep. Rich McCormick's (R-Ga.) resolution to censure Tlaib "For promoting false narratives regarding the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and for calling for the destruction of the state of Israel" failed, with one Democrat—Rep. Brad Scheider of Illinois—joining 212 Republicans in voting down the measure.

Tlaib has never called for the destruction of Israel.

Six Republicans—Reps. Ken Buck (Colo.), John Duarte (Calif.), Mike Garcia (Calif.), Thomas Massie (Ky.), Thomas McClintock (Calif.), and Ryan Zinke (Mont.)—voted to table the motion.

"It's not our job to censure somebody because we don't agree with them," argued Buck.

Many Republicans and Democrats have accused Tlaib of antisemitism, especially for calling Israel's war on Gaza a "genocide"—an assessment with which many experts concur—and for using the phrase, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free."

Tlaib has explained that, to her, the phrase—which is also a core component of the original platform of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party—"is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate."

But to little avail, as House Republicans answered with censure resolutions, including a failed effort by far-right Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. House lawmakers are set to hold a final vote on McCormick's resolution on Wednesday.

"While I will continue to defend First Amendment liberties for those I disagree with, I will not support the right to call for a violent genocide," Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) said.

There is no evidence that Tlaib has ever called for any genocide.

However, statements by some congressional Republicans—and many Israeli officials including Netanyahu—have been condemned by human rights defenders as advocating genocidal violence against Palestinians.

Speaking on the House floor Tuesday, Tlaib said:

There are millions of people across our country who oppose Netanyahu's extremism and are done watching our country support collective punishment and the use of white phosphorus bombs that melt flesh to the bone. They are done watching our government... supporting cutting off food, water, electricity, and medical care to millions of people with nowhere to go. Like me... they don't believe the answer to war crimes is more war crimes.

"The refusal of Congress and the [Biden] administration to acknowledge Palestinian lives is chipping away at my soul," Tlaib said. "Over 10,000 Palestinians have been killed."

"Let me be clear: My criticism has always been of the Israeli government and Netanyahu's actions. It's important to separate people and governments—no government is beyond criticism," she stressed. "The idea that criticizing the government of Israel is antisemitic sets a very dangerous precedent and it's being used to silence diverse voices speaking up for human rights across our nation."

"Do you realize what it's like, Mr. Chair, for the people outside our chamber right now listening in agony to their own government dehumanizing them?" Tlaib asked. "To hear the president of the United States who we helped elect dispute death tolls as we see video after video of dead children and parents under rubble? Mr. Chair, do you know what it's like to fear rising hate crimes... and worry that your own child might suffer the same horrors that 6-year-old Wadea [Al Fayoume] did in Illinois?"

"I can't believe I have to say this but Palestinian people are not disposable," she said. After a long pause in which she choked back tears, she added, "We are human beings just like anyone else."

"The idea that criticizing the government of Israel is antisemitic sets a very dangerous precedent and it's being used to silence diverse voices speaking up for human rights across our nation."

Holding up a photo of her grandmother who lives in the illegally occupied West Bank and flanked by her friend and colleague Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Tlaib said her "Sity," like all Palestinians, "just wants to live her life with the freedom and human dignity we all deserve."

Tlaib said she is "inspired by the courageous survivors in Israel, who have lost loved ones, yet are calling for a cease-fire," and "grateful for the people in the streets in the peace movement, with countless Jewish Americans across the country standing up and lovingly saying, 'Not in our name.'"

"Speaking up to save lives—no matter faith, no matter ethnicity—should not be controversial in this chamber," she argued. "The cries of the Palestinian and Israeli children sound no different to me. What I don't understand is why the cries of Palestinians sound different to you all. We cannot lose our shared humanity."