During a trip to Michigan
on Tuesday,
Representative Rashida Tlaib,
the first Palestinian American to
serve in Congress, actually
confronted President Joe Biden
to do more to protect Palestine
civilians in Gaza.
Now, the New York Times reported on
this, and there was a wonderful
photo to go along with it.
Let's take a look.
Representative Rashida Tlaib,
Democratic Michigan confronted
President Biden on Tuesday over his
support for for Israel urging him
to do more to protect Palestinian
lives and human rights.
As you all probably already know,
but just in case, I'll remind or
remind you, what we've gotten from
Biden publicly about the violence
in the Gaza Strip has been this
talking point about how Israel has
the right to defend itself.
Obviously, that talking point
leaves out a lot of important
context as to how this began
in the first place, and just how
unequal both sides really are.
This is an asymmetrical situation,
where you have one side,
the Israeli side that is of course
well funded.
It has a sophisticated military.
It has sophisticated
defense capabilities
with the the Iron Dome.
And then when it comes to
the Gaza Strip and
the Palestinians, they don't have
that, they just don't have that and
we need to be real about it.
And so Rashida Tlaib,
is justified in her disappointment
in the Biden administration and
his unwillingness to call for
an immediate ceasefire publicly.
Now it's also questionable whether
Tlaib made any type of impression
on Biden because the guy can't even
remember her name.
Let's watch.
>> Rashida Tlaib, where's Rashida?
[APPLAUSE] >> I tell you
what Rashida, and I want to say to
you that I admire your intellect,
I admire your passion, and
I admire your concern for so
many other people.
And it's from my heart I'm pray
that your grandma and
family are well.
I promise I'm going to do
everything you see that
they are in the West Bank.
You're a fighter, and God,
thank you for being a friend.
[APPLAUSE] >> Now, I don't want to
be too tough on Biden,
but make sure the person's name,
[LAUGH] especially when it comes to
something as serious as what she
had confronted you about.
But the White House Deputy Press
Secretary told the press when they
were on Air Force One, that quote,
our focus has not changed, we're
working toward a de-escalation,
to a sustainable calm.
Our approach is to make sure that
we do this quietly, intensively,
in a diplomatic way.
Biden wants to be on a path to
a cease-fire.
That is what he's calling for.
That statement is unacceptable.
A path to a ceasefire is
not good enough,
it's clearly not good enough.
And the fact that Biden has this
hesitation, a pretty significant
hesitation as this violence
continues for the tenth day,
has significant consequences.
Dozens of children are dead, there
are dozens of women who are also
dead.
We're talking about innocent
civilians whose homes have been
destroyed and whose lives have been
ended as a result of what we're
seeing right these Israeli
airstrikes in the Gaza Strip.
So we'd like to be on a path to
a ceasefire.
No, we need a ceasefire now,
it's not that difficult to do that.
It's not difficult to
call for that.
And it's certainly not difficult to
maybe put a pause to the more
than $700 million in weapons sales
to the Israeli government as
they're brutalizing Palestinian
civilians in the Gaza Strip.
So that statement from Deputy Press
Secretary is just not good enough.
Now meanwhile,
Biden has approved that sale for
weapons.
I do want to give you the exact
figure as the Washington Post
reported power up,
Biden administration approved $735
million weapons sale to Israel
raising red Flags for
some House Democrats.
Progressive Democrats
are attempting to block that sale
of weaponry.
It's unlikely
that that will actually happen.
But it is important to have members
of Congress actually stand up to
a narrative that I think
the American people have been
sold for far too long.
That the real victims here happened
to be the Israeli government, the
aggressorsor are the Palestinians,
that's just not the case here.
And I think that hearts and minds
are changing as we see the civilian
death count in the Gaza Strip.
And as we see all this footage
of people's homes being destroyed,
of a building for instance, that
International media was operating
out of get bombed over the weekend.
The old propaganda isn't working
and so the question is,
is the Biden administration that's
now being confronted by
Progressive Democrats in Congress
going to change its mind and
maybe not want to be on the path.
Maybe not on the path of ceasefire
but actually call for
an immediate ceasefire, we'll see.
Now Rashada Tlaib did give
an incredible speech on the House
floor just last week that shows you
just how personal this situation is
for her.
And what she says here is correct,
so let's watch.
>> Palestinians aren't
going anywhere,
no matter how much money you send
to Israel's apartheid government.
We are good are to make good on our
promises to support equal human
rights for all.
It is our duty to end the apartheid
system that for
decades has subjected Palestinians
to inhumane treatment and racism.
Reducing Palestinians to
live in utter fear and
terror of losing a child,
being indefinitely detained or
killed because of who they are.
The unequal rights and protections
they have under Israeli law,
it must end.
One of Israel's most prominent
human rights organizations, but
Selim has declared Israel
an apartheid state.
Human Rights Watch recently
recognized it too.
This is what Palestinians living
under Israel's oppression have
been telling us for decades.
There has been
absolutely no recognition of
Palestinian humanity.
If our own state department can
even bring itself to acknowledge
the killing Palestinian children is
wrong, well, I will say it for
the millions of Americans, who
stand with me, against the killing
of innocent children, no matter
their ethnicity, or faith.
I weep for all the lives lost under
the unbearable status quo, every
single one, no matter their faith,
their background.
>> And while the death count or
the toll is much higher among
the Palestinian civilians, I have
no doubt that there are Israeli
civilians in Tel Aviv who are
fearful for their lives as well.
The issue is that this violence
doesn't need to occur in the first
place.
The aggression started with
Netanyahu who decided to raid
the Al-Aqsa Mosque, who decided to
attempt to evict Palestinians from
the homes that they've lived in for
decades and Sheikh Jarrah.
So for anyone who has any concern
for human life on both sides,
a call for an immediate ceasefire
is incredibly important and
mandatory.
And we're just not getting
that from Joe Biden.
I also want to commend The Daily,
which is the podcast for
the New York Times, because just
this morning, they released
an episode where they spoke to a 22
year old Palestinian woman.
And I want to share
a portion of that podcast with you,
because these are the types of
stories that previously I feel
Americans didn't hear from.
But these are stories that
are important because it gives
you a sense of
what this terror is really like.
Let's watch.
>> When was the last time
you experienced that, you heard or
felt a bombing?
>> Well,
it's just a couple of hours ago.
The entire house shook,
you have everyone in the house
running to the center of
the house to the living room.
Making sure we're all there and
we're all dead silent and
anticipating something more.
Usually when there's one bombing,
another comes after it.
So, we have to live through this
constant here all day.
>> Can you explain that?
Why do you all run to
the living room?
Why do you all huddle together?
>> Well in our house, the living
room is kind of the safest area to
stay in.
And if the house is bombed,
we're all in one place.
People in Gaza have this thing they
always say, if we die,
we want to die together.
I don't know if you've read a viral
tweet for one of my friends,
actually, her name is Reema Saad.
What she said was that,
today I put my children to sleep in
my bedroom so that if we die, we
all die together and no one lives
to mourn the death of another one.
Every Palestinian family in Gaza
does this.
>> Imagine living under those
conditions and then being told
by the United States government,
that Israel has the right to defend
itself.
As an American, it embarrasses me.
And I feel a great deal of shame as
a result of what Biden and
Anthony Blinken, Secretary of State
have said incessantly in response
to the violence directed toward
Palestinian civilians.
These stories are important,
because this is the kind of terror
that we finance.
This is the kind of terror
that the US government supports.
And it supports it in the way that
they respond to it rhetorically,
and it supports it in the form of
weapons sales to the tune recently
of $735 million.