[Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”]
Rashida Tlaib is the least mediagenic of the three founding members of the Squad who entered Congress in 2019 (the others are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar), but she is arguably the most venomous, and indeed, the most dangerous. On August 29, she spoke at the People’s Conference for Palestine in Detroit, and significantly enhanced the reputation she had already amassed for harsh, ugly rhetoric, strident hatred of Israel, and unashamed anti-Americanism. And so the inevitable question arises: what has happened to us as a nation that there are people of this perspective in Congress, and what kind of long-term damage might they do to the strength and unity of our nation?
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) reported that on August 29, Tlaib was a featured speaker at the People’s Conference for Palestine in Detroit, and made it clear that she considers herself to be part of a frankly subversive force within the United States. Tlaib thundered: “They thought they could kill us, rape us, imprison us, violently uproot us from our olive tree farms, starve our children to death, and we would disappear. Well, guess what, now we are in Congress and we’re [in] every corner of the United States.”
The idea that Tlaib represented the oppressed against the vicious, amoral oppressor was clear enough, and represented a flight into Marxist rhetoric that was certain to please the far-left allies of the Islamic jihadis for whom she has so much sympathy. But her statement was ambiguous in another important sense: just who, exactly, was “we”? To whom was she referring as the ones who would keep coming despite being killed, raped, imprisoned, and the like? Palestinian Arabs? Muslims? Hamas jihadis? At very least, they’re the victims of Israel, whom the Israelis have violently mistreated, are now occupying the corridors of power in the United States.
And thus the conflict as Tlaib envisions it is not restricted solely to Gaza and Israel. It’s here. Tlaib says that those whom the Israelis have victimized are now in the Congress and all over the U.S. And these people do not think, even though they’re no longer in Israel or its environs (if they ever were), that their role in the conflict is over. Tlaib continues: “Y’all, they just don’t get it. They just don’t get it. They will never truly comprehend, even after seven decades, that we aren’t going anywhere. We are just getting started. I want to say to all of them, every genocide enabler, look at this room, motherf**kers, we ain’t going anywhere.”
In light of the fact that Tlaib’s phony victimhood narrative is a total inversion of reality, this is nothing short of chilling. It was Hamas, not Israel, that indulged in an orgy of rape and murder on October 7, 2023; it is Hamas, not Israel, that perpetuates the conflict and wants to see Israel eradicated entirely and a new genocide occur. And so now these people are in the U.S., and not just in the country, but in Congress? What exactly, then, does Rashida Tlaib means when she said “we are just getting started”? Something like an October 7 attack here, a massive, bloody strike against the alleged oppressors?
Tlaib added: “As an American, this city taught me, taught me that the political structures that I have to work in, that we are surrounded by, was built on slavery, and genocide, and rape, and oppression.” Yeah, gosh, slavery, genocide, rape and oppression are unheard-of in the Islamic world, aren’t they? But back in the realm of reality, all of these are hallmarks of Islamic jihad warfare and conquest throughout history. Tlaib is demonstrating that she considers herself to be an enemy of the “political structures” of the United States — and yet she is a member of the United States House of Representatives.
How has America come to a point where people who hate this country are its elected representatives? How long can a nation survive when its own elected representatives despise it and side with its enemies? How long before those whom Tlaib champions start making good on her words and striking out against the alleged “oppressor” in this land of rotten political structures that she hates? All these questions, unfortunately, will have unmistakably clear answers in due time.