[ Speaking out against an ongoing, attempted genocide is not a
crime, nor is it antisemitic. ]
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BY CENSURING RASHIDA TLAIB, CONGRESS REVEALS ‘PALESTINE
EXCEPTION’ TO FREE SPEECH  
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Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan
November 11, 2023
LA Progressive
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_ Speaking out against an ongoing, attempted genocide is not a crime,
nor is it antisemitic. _

Rep. Rashida Tlaib,

 

In the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, the nation’s founding documents are on
display, including the Bill of Rights, which enshrines free speech. As
Israel subjects Gaza to a massive air and ground assault, Congress
has reminded us
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what has come to be known as “the Palestine exception” to free
speech.

Last Tuesday, 22 Democrats joined with the Republican majority
to censure Palestinian-American Congressmember Rashida Tlaib.
[[link removed]] Just
before the rare vote, Tlaib addressed the House, surrounded by her
progressive colleagues including the two other Muslims in Congress,
André Carson and Ilhan Omar–herself the only African refugee in
Congress, their fellow African American Congressmembers Ayanna
Pressley [[link removed]], Summer
Lee, Jamal Bowman, and Cori Bush
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the Progressive Caucus, Pramila Jayapal
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_“TRYING TO BULLY OR CENSOR ME WON’T WORK, BECAUSE THIS MOVEMENT
FOR A CEASE-FIRE IS MUCH BIGGER THAN ONE PERSON. IT’S GROWING EVERY
SINGLE DAY."_

“I’m the only Palestinian American serving in Congress, Mr. Chair,
and my perspective is needed here now more than ever. I will not be
silent, and I will not let you distort my words,” Tlaib said.
[[link removed]] “Trying
to bully or censor me won’t work, because this movement for a
cease-fire is much bigger than one person. It’s growing every single
day. There are millions of people across our country who oppose
[Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu’s extremism…They are done
watching our government, Mr. Chair, supporting cutting off food,
water, electricity, and medical care to millions of people with
nowhere to go. Like me, Mr. Chair, they don’t believe the answer to
war crimes is more war crimes.”

As Congressmember Tlaib was being censured, 87-year-old Holocaust
survivor Marione Ingram was nearby, protesting at the White House,
demanding President Joe Biden call for a cease-fire.

“I find it horrific that the politicians have the nerve to censure
righteous voices for peace and for the lives of Gazans, who are being
murdered,” Ingram said on the _Democracy Now!_ news hour
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next day. “It is a slaughter that is happening. Rashida Tlaib
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hero.”

She continued, “I am a Jew, my mother was a Jew, my Jewish family
was murdered in 1941. Hamburg Jews were sent to Minsk in Belarus. Upon
arrival, they were stripped and then shot and dumped into a mass
grave. My grandmother was taken by two Gestapo who came to my
mother’s apartment and took her away the night before I turned 6
years old.”

The German American Holocaust survivor was adamant:
[[link removed]] “Netanyahu’s
government, Israel’s policies for decades has been the suppression
of Palestinians, land grabs, deprivation of Palestinians… I was a
child of war. I have experienced all of these things. I have also
known for a fact that what Israel is doing will not end this conflict.
It will only exacerbate it.”

Marione Ingram is not alone. Over 1,000 Jewish academics, artists, and
clergy have signed an open letter that called for an immediate
cease-fire, the release by Hamas of all hostages, and an end to
Israeli apartheid and occupation. The effort was led by Omer Bartov,
Brown University Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies,
described by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum as one of the
world’s leading specialists on the subject of genocide.

“I was a soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces between 1973 and
1976, so as a young soldier, the first thing that I experienced was
the trauma, the huge surprise of the Arab, the Egyptian, and Syrian
attack on Israel on October 6, 1973,” Bartov explained
on _Democracy Now!_
[[link removed]] “When
the Hamas attack on Israel occurred on the 7th of October 2023, 50
years and a day later, that was quite traumatic for myself and many
members of my generation.”

Professor Bartov continued, “Israeli political leaders and military
leaders have made very startling and frightening statements about
Gaza, speaking about flattening Gaza, speaking about Hamas, but by
extension, Gazans in general, as human animals, speaking about moving
the entire population of Gaza out of Gaza, that is a clear intention
of ethnic cleansing. Those statements show intent… genocidal intent,
which is often very difficult to prove, and genocide, people who carry
out genocide don’t always want to say that they’re doing it.”

Bartov’s concerns are seconded by another veteran of the 1973 Yom
Kippur War, renowned Israeli historian Ilan Pappé. Pappé wrote a
seminal history of the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine, in what
Palestinians call the nakba, or catastrophe, in the lead up to the
founding of the state of Israel.

“What we are seeing now, what unfolds in front of our eyes, is a
genocidal situation, by which people are targeted, whether they are
children, babies, in hospital, or in schools. This is a massive
operation of killing, of ethnic cleansing, of depopulation,” Pappé
said on _Democracy Now!_
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Speaking out against an ongoing, attempted genocide is not a crime,
nor is it antisemitic. In fact, it is central to the phrase often
invoked by Holocaust survivors and their descendants: “Never
again.”

_AMY GOODMAN is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a
national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on
over 1,400 public television and radio stations worldwide._

_DENIS MOYNIHAN
[[link removed]] has worked
with Democracy Now! [[link removed]] since 2000. He
is a bestselling author and a syndicated columnist with King Features.
He lives in Colorado, where he founded community radio station KFFR
88.3 FM in the town of Winter Park._

* Rashida Tlaib
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* censure resolution
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* Israel-Gaza War
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* Palestinian rights
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