For the Record: Rashida Tlaib on H. RES. 326

Rashida Tlaib's remarks on H. RES. 326*

Ms. TLAIB. Mr. Speaker, I rise today as a proud granddaughter of a strong, loving Palestinian woman, my sity. For me to stand up for her human dignity, I must oppose H. Res. 326.

This resolution not only endorses an unrealistic, unattainable solution, one that Israel has made impossible, but also one that legitimizes inequality, ethnic discrimination and inhuman conditions. Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Likud party have actively fought against a two-state solution and took steps to ensure its demise. They increased their illegal taking of Palestinian homes, imprisoned more Palestinian children than ever before, and are building walls right now to annex the West Bank and other Palestinian villages.

Moreover, Israel’s nation-state law, which states that only Jews have the right to self-determination, has eliminated the political rights of the Palestinian people and effectively made them second-class citizens. Separate but equal didn’t work in our country, and I can’t see that it is possible in other countries. Given our Nation’s history of segregation, we should recognize when such injustices are occurring. We cannot be honest brokers for peace if we refuse to use the words: illegal occupation by Israel.

Our country and the United States Congress must condemn these undemocratic actions. We must take bolder actions to ensure that human rights are upheld in Israel and that Palestinians and Black Israelis are treated with equality every human being deserves.

To honor my Sity Mufteih who lives in the occupied West Bank, Palestine, I am unable to support this resolution today. She deserves better. 

Video is here.

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* Full text

Whereas the special relationship between the United States and Israel is rooted in shared national security interests and shared values of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law; 
Whereas the United States has worked for decades to strengthen Israel’s security through assistance and cooperation on defense and intelligence matters in order to enhance the safety of United States and Israeli citizens; including by finalizing in 2016 under the Obama Administration, a 10-year Memorandum of Understanding, reaffirming the United States’ commitment to annual military assistance and cooperative missile defense programs, which is in the national interests of both countries; 
Whereas the United States remains unwavering in its commitment to help Israel address the myriad challenges it faces, including terrorism, regional instability, horrifying violence in neighboring states, and hostile regimes that call for its destruction; 
Whereas the United States, under Presidents of both parties, has provided bilateral and multilateral foreign assistance to promote the security, stability, and the humanitarian well-being of Palestinians; Whereas the United States has long sought a just, stable, and lasting solution to the IsraeliPalestinian conflict that recognizes the Palestinian right to self-determination and offers Israel long-term security and full normalization with its neighbors; 
Whereas for more than 20 years, Presidents of the United States from both political parties and Israeli Prime Ministers have supported reaching a two-state solution that establishes a Palestinian state coexisting side by side with Israel in peace and security; 
Whereas for more than 20 years, Presidents of the United States from both political parties  have opposed settlement expansion, moves toward unilateral annexation of territory, and efforts to achieve Palestinian statehood status outside the framework of negotiations with Israel; 
Whereas United States administrations from both political parties have put forward proposals to provide a framework for negotiations toward a two-state solution, including the parameters put forward by President Bill Clinton in December 2000, the Road Map proposed by President George W. Bush in April 2003, and the principles set forth by President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry in December 2016; 
Whereas ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is vital to the interests of both parties and the leadership of both parties must negotiate in good faith in order to achieve peace; 
and Whereas delays to a political solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians pose a threat to the ability to maintain a Jewish and democratic state of Israel and the establishment of a viable, democratic Palestinian state: 

Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that— 

(1) only the outcome of a two-state solution that enhances stability and security for Israel, Palestinians, and their neighbors can both ensure the state of Israel’s survival as a Jewish and democratic state and fulfill the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people for a state of their own; (2) while the United States remains indispensable to any viable effort to achieve that goal, only the Israelis and the Palestinians can make the difficult choices necessary to end their conflict; 
(3) it is in the enduring United States’ national interest to continue to stand by its ironclad commitments under the 2016 United StatesIsrael Memorandum of Understanding, which seeks to help Israel defend itself against a wide range of threats; 
(4) the United States, with the support of regional and international partners, can play a constructive role toward ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by putting forward a proposal for achieving a two-state solution that is consistent with previous United States proposals to resolve the conflict’s final status issues in ways that recognize the Palestinian right to self-determination and enhance Israel’s long-term security and normalization with its neighbors; 
(5) it is in the United States’ interest to continue promoting the security, stability, and humanitarian well-being of Palestanians and their neighbors by resuming the provision of foreign assistance pursuant to United States law; and 
(6) a United States proposal to achieve a just, stable, and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should expressly endorse a twostate solution as its objective and discourage steps by either side that would put a peaceful end to the conflict further out of reach, including unilateral annexation of territory or efforts to achieve Palestinian statehood status outside the framework of negotiations with Israel.


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Arab-American Anti-Zionism Before Tlaib and Omar

The undermining of Zionism in America by Arabs and Muslims is not new.

As researched here, by Daniel Rickenbachert, there were early attempts and one of them was in January of 1930, when the Mufti-led Supreme Muslim Council (SMC) and the Arab Executive, sent two delegations to the US and to Britain to promote the Arab cause, this just after the murderous 1929 Riots.

As appears there, the delegation to the US consisted of the Syrian pan-Islamic activist Shakib Arslan, his brother Adel Arslan, Issa Bandak and three other members. In the US, the delegation met with the State Department, arguing that only the abolition of the Balfour Declaration could lead to a reconciliation between Jews and Arabs. The delegation also appealed to the Arab-Americans to “emulate the American Jews” by giving donations to the SMC. However, the undertaking was reportedly a financial disaster. This may explain why there were no further Arab delegations from Palestine during the next seven years.  

But the first one to speak out against Zionism was an American-Lebanese, Amin Rihani who arrived in the US in 1898.  That was in September 1917, two months before the Balfour Declaration, when he published an anti-Zionism piece. In his article, 

he listed anti-Zionist arguments as it being primarily a religious movement and that Arabs would not tolerate Jewish domination. He added that, echoing arguments from Reform Jews, Zionism would expose Jews to the accusation of dual allegiance.

But he could not avoid the basic truth:

Also in 1917, a Ramallah-born New York surgeon, Fuad Isa Shatara, Nazereth-born, eventually a suicide victim, and N.A. Katibah founded the Palestine Antizionism Society. 

Both of them into the late 1920s and beyond, published in their journal, The Syrian World

and see below.

And they were among the organizers of an anti-Zionist rally on November 8, 1918 in Brooklyn. The rally passed a resolution, describing the Arabs at risk of being  dominated by “a race rendered more powerful and wealthy through contact with the western civilization thus applying might against right” and protesting the “artificial importation of Zionists flooding the country against its natural capacities and thus forcing an emigration of the rightful inhabitants.”

Shatara of the Palestine Antizionism Society wrote two letters to Secretary of State Robert Lansing in November 1918 and February 1919, arguing that Zionism was in contravention to Wilson’s Fourteen Points.In December 1918, Phillip Hitti (a Maronite Lebanese) and George Khairalla established the New Syria National League. The group lobbied for the establishment of a Greater Syria under American protection, reaching from the Sinai to the Euphrates. These groups intensified their activities in light of the upcoming peace conference in Paris. Shatara and Hitti reached out to John Huston Finley, the chief of the Red Cross Commission in Palestine, asking Finley not to detach Palestine from Greater Syria.

See

And they all failed.

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Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib Comes From A Settler Family (UPDATED)

I read it here:

Rashida Harbi Elabed — she took the last name of her ex-husband, Fayez Tlaib, when they were married in 1998 and kept it — is and remains a Detroiter. She was born and raised in southwest, where her father, Harbi Elabed, and her mother, Fatima, settled. Harbi Elabed, despite being impoverished at times, made it to Detroit from Jerusalem, via Nicaragua, and worked the line at Ford’s Flat Rock Assembly Plant; Tlaib's mother came from a small village in Palestine. 

And another thing:

She will use Thomas Jefferson’s personal copy of George Sale’s 1734 translation of the Koran into English, a two-volume work that resides in the Library of Congress. “It’s important to me because a lot of Americans have this kind of feeling that Islam is somehow foreign to American history,” said Tlaib

I am not sure what she means by the "beginning".

I do know about the Barbary Pirates who were Muslim. They were

Ottoman and Maghrebi pirates and privateers who operated from North Africa, based primarily in the ports of Salé, Rabat, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. This area was known in Europe as the Barbary Coast

As to their activities, one estimation has it that

Between 1580 and 1680 corsairs were said to have captured about 850,000 people as slaves and from 1530 to 1780 as many as 1,250,000 people were enslaved

As for a connection with Thomas Jefferson, I read that

one cannot get around what Jefferson heard when he went with John Adams to wait upon Tripoli’s ambassador to London in March 1785. When they inquired by what right the Barbary states preyed upon American shipping, enslaving both crews and passengers, America’s two foremost envoys were informed that “it was written in the Koran, that all Nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon whoever they could find and to make Slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.”

And that

Yusuf Karamanli, the pasha of Tripoli, declared war on the United States in May 1801, in pursuit of his demand for more revenue. This earned him a heavy bombardment of Tripoli and the crippling of one of his most important ships. 

The year 1801 is close to the beginning although that Barbary Coast campaign went on into 1815. 

I would presume former President Barack Obama pushed that theme:

Here's another fact: Islam has always been part of America. Starting in colonial times, many of the slaves brought here from Africa were Muslim. And even in their bondage, some kept their faith alive. A few even won their freedom and became known to many Americans. And when enshrining the freedom of religion in our Constitution and our Bill of Rights, our Founders meant what they said when they said it applied to all religions.

Back then, Muslims were often called Mahometans. And Thomas Jefferson explained that the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom he wrote was designed to protect all faiths — and I'm quoting Thomas Jefferson now — "the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan." 

And by the way, the claim that she is the first Palestinian member of Congress is probably wrong.

The first Palestinian to become a Congressman was J.H. Krebs.*

He lived in the Palestine Mandate 1933-1946 and I would presume he had Palestinian citizenship as his previous German citizenship would have been invalidated by the Nazi regime.

He was Jewish.  Even served in the Hagana.

Move over Rashida Tlaib?

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* And I asked:

Thank you for submitting your question to Library of Congress - Digital Reference Team
Question ID: 14197950
Your question: Was JH Krebs not the first "Palestinian" to serve in Congress?

You will receive acknowledgment of question receipt and an answer to your question at the e-mail address you provided.

P.S.  From Congressman Krebs' widow, Hannah:

"I have been hunting for John’s passport when he first came to the U.S. from Israel in Nov. 1946 with his passport marked “Palestinian.”  Yes, he was that before the state was founded and probably the first former Palestinian in Congress, by then an American citizen.  Obviously not an Arab Palestinian like Rashida Tlaib."

(thanks to AbuYehudah)

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I now see this:

Two more errors on Omar’s list: Tlaib, whom she lists as the first Palestinian American; is preceded by Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., and former Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H.

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