Rashida Tlaib remains in a national spotlight at the start of her second month as a congresswoman from Detroit.
She and Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minneapolis are "perhaps the most embattled new members of the Democratic House majority," The New York Times says under the headline "From Celebrated to Vilified, House’s Muslim Women Absorb Blows Over Israel."
Rashida Tlaib on oath-taking day last month. (Twitter photo: Amer Zahr)
"Almost daily, Republicans brashly accuse Ms. Tlaib and Ms. Omar of anti-Semitism and bigotry," writes Sheryl Gay Stolberg. Their defenders, in turn, "accuse Republicans of bullying and bigotry," the congressional correspondent adds.
The tussle over Ms. Tlaib and Ms. Omar has exposed a growing generational divide within the Democratic Party, pitting an old guard of stalwart supporters of Israel against an ascendant wing of young liberals — including many young Jews — willing to accuse the Israeli government of human rights abuses and demanding movement toward a Palestinian state. . . .
The Senate [this week] is expected to easily pass legislation aimed at curbing the boycott-Israel movement — and stifling the new Democratic voices like Ms. Tlaib and Ms. Omar that back it. The bill would allow state and local governments to break ties with companies that participate in the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions, or B.D.S., movement, which is intended, among other things, to pressure Israel into ending the occupation of the West Bank, and backed by some who advocate a single state with equal rights for all, instead of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. . . .
For her part, the representative from Southwest Detroit -- who is the first Palestinian-American woman in Congress -- tells the paper in a statement:
"This respect for free speech does not equate to anti-Semitism. I dream of my Palestinian grandmother living with equal rights and human dignity one day, and would never allow that dream to be tainted by any form of hate."
Her grandmother lives in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Tlaib and Omar declined to speak with reporter Stolberg.
