Kevin McCarthy squashes Rashida Tlaib's antisemitic event on Capitol–hosts pro-Israel program instead

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has blocked progressive ‘Squad’ member Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s attempt to host an event at the US Capitol Building with anti-Israel groups that would label the founding of the Jewish State a “catastrophe.” 

McCarthy (R-CA) announced in a tweet on Tuesday, “This event in the US Capitol is canceled. Instead, I will host a bipartisan discussion to honor the 75th anniversary of the US-Israel relationship.” 


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Tlaib had planned to host an event with nine anti-Israel groups at the Capitol Visitor Center on Wednesday called “Nakba 75 & the Palestinian People.” 

“Nakba” means “catastrophe” in Arabic and is the term used by many in the Arab world for the founding of the Jewish state. 

McCarthy told the Washington Free Beacon regarding Tlaib’s event. “It’s wrong for members of Congress to traffic in anti-Semitic tropes about Israel. As long as I’m Speaker, we are going to support Israel’s right to self-determination and self-defense, unequivocally and in a bipartisan fashion.”

Tlaib’s event was described as, “May 15th marks 75 years since the beginning of the Nakba, which means ‘catastrophe.’ Seventy-five years ago, Zionist militias and the new Israeli military violently expelled approximately three-quarters of all Palestinians from their homes and homeland in what became the state of Israel.”

Organizers of the event said they hope to educate members of Congress and their staff on the “ongoing Nakba to which Israel continues to subject Palestinians.” 

Jewish Voice for Peace, one of the groups Tlaib partnered with for the event, is described by the Anti-Defamation League as a “radical anti-Israel activist group that advocates for a complete economic, cultural and academic boycott of the state of Israel” that “celebrates figures who have been convicted of engaging in terrorism.” 

Last week, Tlaib was labeled by Twitter's new fact-checking after the far-left activists called Israel an "apartheid state."

After the Republican leader addressed the Israeli Knesset to celebrate the Jewish state’s 75th birthday, Tlaib tweeted, "Speaker McCarthy wants to rewrite history but the apartheid state of Israel was born out of violence and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. 75 years later, the Nakba continues to this day."

Twitter’s instant fact check pointed out multiple errors with Tlaib's tweet.

The first was that Israel was created by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181, and linked to the document at the UN's official website.
 
The fact check also noted that the "ethnic cleansing" Tlaib claimed happened "affected both Jewish and Arab communities caught up in the war, which was initiated by 5 Arab states who opposed the existence of Israel," and linked to the US State Department's official history of the Arab-Israeli War of 1948.

The final note pointed out that Israel has over 20 percent Arab citizens who have "full and equal rights," and linked to a Democracy Institute study that found the country's Arab residents had declining rates of infant mortality and rising life expectancies. 

Former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman wrote in response to Tlaib, "You’re a bit off on this congresswoman. Actually, the State of Israel was born notwithstanding the unsuccessful Palestinian attempts at ethnic cleansing to remove the Jews, through acts of terror and collaboration with Hitler (whose dear friend was Grand Mufti of Jerusalem)."

Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations Gilad Erdan told Fox News, "Tlaib’s ignorance and hatred toward the Jewish people and the State of Israel know no bounds. The facts are clear: the Arabs rejected the UN’s resolution to establish a Jewish state and started a war to annihilate the Jews in Israel. 

Erdan added, “Since then, for the past 75 years, the Palestinians are bringing upon themselves a Nakba by continuing to incite hate and terrorism and rejecting every peace plan. Tlaib is rewriting history and her antisemitic lies ignore the fact that the only ethnic cleansing took place against the 850,000 Jews who were expelled from Arab countries following Israel’s establishment."
 

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which combats anti-Semitism, told the Washington Free Beacon, "The real Nakba is [that Tlaib] got elected to represent her district and the American people in Congress. She could have been and should have been someone who would work tirelessly to bring Palestinians and Israelis together to make peace. Instead, she continues to serve as a cheerleader for demonization and delegitimization of the Jewish state."