Posted on 09/22/24
| News Source: Arutz-7
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) condemned a cartoon published in the National Review magazine showing her with an exploding pager, a reference to the explosions of Hezbollah in pagers Lebanon, branding it racist, Reuters reported.
"Our community is already in so much pain right now. This racism will incite more hate + violence against our Arab & Muslim communities, and it makes everyone less safe. It's disgraceful that the media continues to normalize this racism," Tlaib wrote on social media site X on Friday.
The cartoon, published on Thursday, showed a woman sitting next to an exploding pager. The woman's desk in the cartoon had a name card saying "Rep. Tlaib" while the woman herself is shown saying: "Odd. My pager just exploded."
The cartoon was created by Henry Payne, a Detroit News auto critic. Payne's X account titled the cartoon as "Tlaib Pager Hamas." The Detroit News said it was not involved in its creation and distribution, and chose not to run it.
In response to Tlaib’s denouncing the cartoon, many X users replied to her and pointed out her statements against Israel.
“OK, now denounce antisemitism,” wrote one user. Another replied, “What does ‘From the River to the Sea’ normalize, Rashida?” and attached a screenshot from an older post by Tlaib calling for a ceasefire and including the phrase which is often chanted at anti-Israel demonstrations.
Another user replied to Tlaib, “Um, you're kind of pro-Hamas and pro-Hezbollah. Your hateful rhetoric toward Israel shows your own internal disgust for a race of people. I don't think you have room to talk. They're just showing how you have stood with terrorists time and again!”
Tlaib, a member of the so-called Squad of anti-Israel lawmakers in Congress, has continued her anti–Israel statements and actions during the war against Hamas in Gaza.
Tlaib criticized Israel’s alleged “apartheid system” after the Hamas October 7 attack on Israel, and also criticized the US for providing billions in funding “to support the apartheid government”.
She has refused to apologize or acknowledge fault in echoing the phrase "from the river to the sea," which she claimed represented Palestinian Arab freedom while most regard it as a call for Israel's extermination.
Tlaib also came under fire for a statement in which she accused the IDF of "bombing" a hospital in Gaza, which was actually hit by an Islamic Jihad rocket.
The congresswoman wore a keffiyeh to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech before a joint session of Congress in July, where she held up signs accusing Netanyahu of war crimes and genocide during the speech.
A week later, Tlaib condemned Israel's elimination of Hezbollah's second-highest ranking official, Fuad Shukr, in an air strike in Beirut.