Rashida Tlaib's dual identities in Congress -- a representative from Detroit and a Palestinian rights crusader -- are the focus of a lengthy New York Times profile in its Sunday magazine this weekend.
The 5,100-word article, posted Thursday, is headlined "What Rashida Tlaib Represents."
Rashida Tlaib wears an embroidered thobe, a traditional Palestinian dress (Photo: Facebook)
New York freelancer Rozina Ali, who interviewed Tlaib at a Midtown Detroit cafe and elsewhere, describes how the second-term House member has "changed the Israeli-Palestinian debate in Congress by reminding her colleagues of the human stakes."
Her father, Harbi Elabed, was born in East Jerusalem, and her mother, Fatima, grew up in Beit Ur al-Fouqa, a village in the West Bank. They arrived in Detroit shortly before Tlaib was born, in 1976. ...
[Tlaib] appeared in a traditional Palestinian dress made by her mother during her [2019] swearing in, sometimes wears a kaffiyeh (symbolically tied to the Palestinian resistance) on the House floor and speaks often about her grandmother in the West Bank. ...
In interviews, Tlaib speaks about the occupied Palestinian territories in the context of Detroit, pointing to issues of water access in both, comparing their patterns of segregation and poverty. "I don’t separate them," Tlaib told me. Both places have "what I call 'othering' politics," she said, "or feeling like government or systems are making us feel 'less than.'"
Overall, Ali writes, the congresswoman is "more outspoken on domestic issues than she is on the Palestinian cause."
That balancing act is important this year as Tlaib runs for a third term, now in the 12th Congressional District rather than the 13th because of redistricting. One of two announced Democratic primary challengers, former state Rep. Shanelle Jackson of Detroit, stresses her support for Israel and accuses Tlaib of "antisemitic rhetoric."
Jackson, who is Black, in January said this to a national publication called Jewish Inisder:
"I believe that the United States and Israel are sisters, and I can't imagine living in a world where our nation didn't have Israel’s back. It's heartbreaking, to be honest with you, to have Rep. Tlaib not even wanting to explore that path.
"She obviously is carrying the water of Palestine in all that she does. Meanwhile, Detroiters, we don't have a voice [in Congress]."
Jackson opposes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting the Jewish state, while Tlaib is among a handful of House Democrats supporting that effort.
The New York Times Magazine article
Jackson backs a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which Tlaib opposes -- a "position [that] has put Tlaib out of step with most of her Democratic colleagues," The Times' profile notes. "Even her progressive colleagues like [Ilhan] Omar support a two-state solution."
And last September, Tlaib called Israel an "apartheid regime" when she voted against providing an additional $1 billion for Israel's "Iron Dome" missile defense system. Just eight other House members also voted no. Rep. Steny Hoyer, the House majority leader, said Tlaib's remarks were "harsher than they needed to be."
Now, in an apparent election year effort to lower her crusader profile, the Detroiter avoids taking the lead in forming a possible Palestinian caucus of House members. From The Times magazine piece:
Staff members of about a dozen current House and Senate members meet informally to discuss the latest efforts to advance Palestinian rights and their long-term objectives, according to several participants in the discussions. But no one has yet filed the paperwork to start a formal caucus.
"They’re kind of looking at me, and I'm like, 'I’m not doing it by myself!'" Tlaib told me.
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