[The Michigan Democrat joined rights groups in a Senate committee
room to mark the ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Palestinians
during the founding of modern Israel.]
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‘WE WILL NOT BE SILENCED’: TLAIB HEADLINES DC NAKBA EVENT DESPITE
MCCARTHY MEDDLING  
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Brett Wilkins
May 10, 2023
Common Dreams [[link removed]]

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_ The Michigan Democrat joined rights groups in a Senate committee
room to mark the ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Palestinians
during the founding of modern Israel. _

, Credit: Phil Pasquini/Shutterstock.

 

An event featuring U.S. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib
[[link removed]] commemorating the
Nakba—the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians
from their homeland during Israel's War of Independence 75 years
ago—went ahead as scheduled Wednesday evening in Washington, D.C,
despite an attempt by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to derail it.

Tlaib (D-Mich.)—the only Palestinian-American in the House of
Representatives—spoke after Nakba survivors and activists at the
event, "Nakba 75 & the Palestinian People,"
[[link removed]] which
took place in the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP)
Committee hearing room in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on
Capitol Hill. Sen. Bernie Sanders
[[link removed]] (I-Vt.) chairs the
HELP panel.

"We have a right to tell our stories of the Nakba of 1948," Tlaib told
the packed room, according to
[[link removed]] the
advocacy group Democracy in the Arab World Now (DAWN), a co-host of
the event. "And today, because the Nakba never ended."

On Tuesday, McCarthy (R-Calif.) said
[[link removed]] that "the
event in the U.S. Capitol has been canceled" and replaced with "a
bipartisan discussion to honor the 75th anniversary of the U.S.-Israel
relationship."

"It's wrong for members of Congress to traffic in antisemitic tropes
about Israel," the congressman told
[[link removed]]_The__Washington__Free
Beacon_. "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."

However, Tlaib issued a statement Wednesday clarifying that the event
was still on.

"We fully plan on moving forward with this event and we will continue
to ensure that Palestinian voices are heard," she asserted. "We will
not be silenced."

"Our hope is to create opportunities for Palestinians, both here at
home and abroad, who continue to experience the impacts of the Nakba,
to tell their stories," the congresswoman explained. "The trauma and
painful loss of their connections to family, villages they grew up in,
and so much more needs to be acknowledged, not only for healing, but
also to create an honest pathway for peace."

"Speaker McCarthy wants to rewrite history and erase the existence and
truth of the Palestinian people, but he has failed to do so," she
added. "This event is planned to bring awareness about the Nakba and
create space for Palestinian-Americans who experienced the Nakba
firsthand to tell their stories of trauma and survival."

Tlaib said that "McCarthy is desperate to distract from the mounting
crises happening on his watch: a scandal-plagued member he has
defended was just arrested
[[link removed]] on 13
federal charges, his twice-impeached MAGA leader was just found
liable [[link removed]] for
sexual abuse, and he's hurtling our country towards a disastrous
default on our debt in order to cut vital programs like veterans'
health care, food assistance, and Medicaid."

"The Nakba is a well-documented historical event that is recognized
by the United Nations [[link removed]]," she
noted. "We cannot allow the same people who want to ban books and
erase history simply because they're uncomfortable with the truth to
silence Palestinian voices."

More than 750,000 Arabs from hundreds of cities, towns, and villages
fled or were expelled from Palestine—sometimes by massacre
[[link removed]], "death
march,"
[[link removed]] and
other violence—during the formation of the modern state of Israel in
1947-49. Hundreds of Palestinian villages were destroyed
[[link removed]] to make way for
newcomers whose only prerequisite for Israeli citizenship is being
Jewish.

The militarized segregation of Israelis and Palestinians in the
illegally occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem and elsewhere is
considered a crime of apartheid by numerous Palestinian
[[link removed]], Israeli
[[link removed]],
and international
[[link removed]] human
rights groups, as well as by prominent international figures
including United Nations officials
[[link removed]],
former U.S. President Jimmy Carter
[[link removed]] and
other Nobel laureates
[[link removed]], and South African
leaders  [[link removed]]who
lived under apartheid during the 20th century.

Meanwhile, more than 7 million Palestinian refugees have been denied
the right of return
[[link removed]] guaranteed
under United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194.

Co-hosts of Wednesday's event include: the Institute for Middle East
Understanding, Americans for Justice in Palestine Action, Project48,
DAWN, U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, American Friends Service
Committee, Virginia Coalition for Human Rights, Emgage Action, and
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Action.

"This month, Palestinians will mark 75 years since the Nakba.
Understanding the truth of the Nakba is not only about acknowledging
historical facts, but also vital to understanding the ongoing violence
of Israeli apartheid," JVP Action executive director Stefanie Fox said
in a statement
[[link removed]] Wednesday.
"We are proud to be part of the massive and growing number of Jews
facing painful truths as part of working toward a shared future of
justice, equality, and freedom."

For the second straight
[[link removed]] year,
Tlaib on Wednesday introduced a resolution
[[link removed]] recognizing
the Nakba and calling on Congress to "condemn all manifestations of
Israel's ongoing Nakba against the Palestinian people," particularly
the "illegal theft of Palestinian land in the West Bank, including
East Jerusalem; Israel's displacement of Palestinians by destroying
their homes and forcing them from their land; and the daily brutality
and violence inflicted by the Israeli military and Israeli settlers
against Palestinian civilians."

"True peace can only be built on truth and justice," Tlaib said in a
statement. "As we mark 75 years since the horror of the Nakba, we
honor the thousands of lives lost, and the nearly 800,000 Palestinians
who were forced from their homes and violently displaced from their
communities during this period of intense ethnic cleansing."

Reps. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), Ilhan Omar
[[link removed]] (D-Minn.), Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez
[[link removed]] (D-N.Y.), Jamaal
Bowman [[link removed]] (D-N.Y.),
and Cori Bush
[[link removed]] (D-Mo.)—all of whom
endorsed Tlaib's 2022 resolution—co-sponsored this year's version.

Tlaib's resolution was published as Israeli military forces continued
to bombard Gaza
[[link removed]] in retaliation
for earlier rocket fire by Palestinian resistance fighters responding
to the death [[link removed]] of
Khader Adnan, a Palestinian activist imprisoned in Israel without
charge or trial, during an 87-day hunger strike.

At least
[[link removed]] 21
Palestinians, no less than a dozen of whom were civilians—including
at least six women and six children—have been killed in the latest
Israeli airstrikes.

On Wednesday, South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor urged
[[link removed]] the
International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for the "leaders
of apartheid Israel" who are "supporting the massacre of the people of
Palestine."

"South Africa is a longstanding partner in solidarity with the people
of Palestine given that they supported our own struggle for freedom,"
Pandor said. "We call on the world to be as concerned about the deaths
of Palestinians as they are concerned about deaths of [people in] any
other nation of the world."

* Nakba
[[link removed]]
* Palestine
[[link removed]]
* Israel
[[link removed]]
* Rashida Tlaib
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* Congress
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