Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) insinuated that voters should bring their disapproval over President Joe Biden‘s handling of the war in Gaza to the ballot box in November.
Tlaib labeled Biden an “enabler” after the president declined to describe Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s military operation in Gaza in response to Hamas‘ Oct. 7 terrorist attack as a genocide.
“Each year, our country, and I say our country because it is our country, sends billions of dollars to maintain an apartheid government and support the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians,” Tlaib told the People’s Conference for Palestine in Detroit on Saturday.
“It is disgraceful that the Biden administration and my colleagues in Congress continue to smear them for protesting to save lives, no matter faith or ethnicity,” she said, mentioning pro-Gaza and -Palestinian demonstrators. “It is cowardly, but we’re not gonna forget November, are we?”
Earlier today, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib was a “surprise guest” at the People’s Conference for Palestine in Detroit, Michigan.
“You are an enabler President Biden.”
“But we aren’t going to forget in November are we?” pic.twitter.com/OwZmDCYwKs
— Stu (@thestustustudio) May 26, 2024
In February, Tlaib, the only Palestinian in Congress, and her sister Layla Elabed encouraged Michigan Democrats to vote “uncommitted” in their state’s primary as part of their Listen to Michigan campaign to protest Biden’s policies regarding the Israel-Hamas war. But they also distanced themselves from their Abandon Biden counterpart, indicating they could still cast a ballot for Biden in the general election.
But Tlaib on Saturday reiterated her criticism of Biden as Israel Defense Forces venture further into the southern Gaza city of Rafah and Hamas launches rockets at Tel Aviv for the first time in months. She, too, contended U.S. money spent on the war could be better spent on schools in her hometown of Detroit.
“The International Court of Justice just ruled that the Israeli government must stop its invasion of Rafah, but President Biden says what’s happening [in Gaza] is not a genocide,” the congresswoman said. “Where’s your red line, President Biden?”
“Attacking the authority of the International Criminal Court and interfering in the legal process is nothing more, nothing more than an attempt to prevent the genocidal maniac Netanyahu and his senior Israeli officials from being held accountable for those crimes against humanity,” she added. “You are an enabler, President Biden.”
Biden has been critical of Netanyahu’s prosecution of the war, but defended his uneasy ally after ICC prosecutor Karim Khan last week announced he is seeking arrest warrants for the prime minister and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, in addition to Hamas’ Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, political chief Ismail Haniyah, and Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, better known as Mohammed Deif, who is behind its armed wing.
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“We don’t recognize their jurisdiction — the ICC — the way it’s being exercised,” Biden told reporters last week during a press conference with Kenyan President William Ruto. “It’s that simple. We don’t think there’s an equivalence between what Israel did and what Hamas did.”
“Contrary to allegations against Israel made by the International Court of Justice, what’s happening is not genocide,” he added during an earlier White House event marking Jewish American Heritage Month. “We reject that. And we’ll always stand with Israel and its — in the threats against its security.”