Who said this horrible thing?
The Democratic representative from Michigan, Rashida Tlaib.
This is what she said:
“There’s always kind of a calming feeling I tell folks when I think of the Holocaust and the tragedy of the Holocaust, and the fact that it was my ancestors –Palestinians – who lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, their human dignity, their existence in many ways, have been wiped out, and some people’s passports.”
She continued, “[A]ll of it was in the name of trying to create a safe haven for Jews, post-the Holocaust, post-the tragedy and the horrific persecution of Jews across the world at that time. And I love the fact that it was my ancestors that provided that, right, in many ways. But they did it in a way that took their human dignity away, and it was forced on them.”
First, in this statement she reveals a deep-seated animus toward Jews. Nobody thinks of the Holocaust and gets calmed! Unless you are not so unhappy about it. The Freudian slip is obvious. This is a veritable insight into her feelings. Even though she called it a tragedy, the verbal lapse reveals her deeper feelings that she doesn’t want to admit publicly.
Secondly, she claims her ancestors provided a safe haven to Jews? And she claims, contrary to logic, that this was imposed on her ancestors! There is a non sequitur here. Either they provided something or it was against their will! Her lack of logic and faulty grammar are only exceeded by her hatred of the Jews and Israel.
Tlaib claims her ancestors provided a haven for Jews. That is a lie. Let’s review the history.
The Arabs living in the British Mandated Palestine not only did not provide a safe haven, but instead routinely massacred ancient Jewish communities living in Gaza and throughout the country. In 1929, Arabs committed an appalling massacre of Jews living in Hebron, one of the four holy Jewish cities. So horrific was the scene of the hacked-to-death Jewish men, women, and children in Hebron, that hardened British soldiers serving in the Mandate were driven to tears.
Tlaib wants us to forget that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini, collaborated with Germany by making propagandistic radio broadcasts and by helping the Nazis recruit Bosnian Muslims for the Waffen-SS. Arab leaders consorted with Nazis, hoping the “final solution” would get rid of the Jews of Palestine.
Husseini enjoyed a close relationship with Hitler, upon whom he conferred the Islamicized name Abu Ali. Husseini organized 42,000 Muslim troops to form Nazi SS divisions that decimated Yugoslavian and Bosnian Jewry. Husseini’s Palestinian youth group, the “Nazi Scouts,” was modeled after the barbaric Hitler Youth.
Husseini spent the war years in Berlin where, at the behest of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, he delivered a daily pro-Nazi radio broadcast to the Muslim world. The broadcasts, which would always end by calling to slaughter the Jews, were enthusiastically received. On a wartime visit to the Middle East, Adolf Eichmann swelled with pride at how “Nazi flags fly in Palestine and they adorn their houses with Swastikas and portraits of Hitler.”
Husseini objected to any plans to expel European Jewry to Palestine, arguing that a better “solution” would be to kill all the Jews. As SS officer Dieter Wisliceny testified at the Nuremberg trials, “The Mufti was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry, and… constantly incited [Eichmann] to accelerate the extermination measures.”
Husseini issued fatwas calling for the destruction of the United States and Great Britain, and exhorted Arabs living in the US not to support the Allied war effort. In a 1943 radio speech from Rome, Husseini declared: “If those Allies win this war... the world will become hell, God forbid.”
Husseini plotted to construct his own Nazi-style death camp in the West Bank. As he wrote in his memoirs: “Our fundamental condition for cooperating with Germany was a free hand to eradicate every last Jew from Palestine and the Arab world. I asked Hitler for an explicit undertaking to allow us to solve the Jewish problem… The answer I got was: ‘The Jews are yours.’” (Quoted from Rabbi Shraga Simmons on Aish.com.)
Those interested in facts, rather than distortions and propaganda, should consult Klaus Gensicke and Alexander Fraser Gunn’s The Mufti of Jerusalem and the Nazis: The Berlin Years, or the book by David Dalin and John Rothmann, Icon of Evil: Hitler’s Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam.
Tlaib’s worst offense, however, is the repeat of the Arab canard that the State of Israel was created only after the Holocaust in order to provide a safe haven for Jews at the expense of the Arabs – her ancestors!
That is the “unkindest cut of all” and she knew very well what she was saying because that is the tired refrain of the Arabs, namely that they are the innocent victims of a world plot to displace them in order to provide a haven for the victims of the Holocaust. That is the main point of her comment. Unfortunately, few have noticed the poisonous point that undermines the legitimacy of the State of Israel and, subliminally, denies the historical connection of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel.
The media and her defenders in the Democratic Party, including Speaker Pelosi, are trying to spin these outrageous and odious comments. “She meant well,” “she was misinterpreted,” and so on. Don’t let them! Her words are terrible, and those who defend her or fail to condemn her are her pliant accomplices. Lenin called this the phenomenon of the “useful idiots.” We should call them out on this! The Jewish community is not going to be quiet about this assault on the truth and on Israel.
Her reaction? Now she calls her critics “racists.” That means that anyone who dares challenge her is racist, Islamophobic (can’t forget that!), and misogynistic too.
What has been the reaction from the Democratic leadership? Schumer (some shomer!)? Speaker Pelosi now is attacking those who criticized Tlaib. Is this what we should expect from the leadership of the Democratic Party now, apologists for the anti-Semites?
Dear Jews: Wake up and do not allow this kind of statements to be forgotten or explained as mere tropes. Write, call, and protest. What does Congresswoman Meng think of this? Will she speak publicly or just whisper it to naive voters? Schumer? Gillibrand? Any Democratic leader? The deafening silence is frightening indeed!
By Rabbi David Algaze