Rashida Tlaib Defends Her Offensive Holocaust Remarks

Controversial Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich, doubled down on her polarizing remarks about having a “calming feeling” whenever she thinks of the Holocaust, and that Palestinians created a “safe haven for Jews” after the Holocaust during her recent appearance on “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” suggesting that here words were taken out of context and she should be speaking to “racist idiots” at a fourth-grade level.

Her remarks to Meyers followed comments which drew the ire of her critic she made during a Yahoo News podcast interview, where she said that the WWII genocide of six million Jews gave her a “calming feeling” as well as offering revisionist history for claiming that Palestinians welcomed Jews to the Middle East when Palestinian leader Grand Mufti Haj Amin el Husseini was actually an ally of Adolph Hitler and met with the dictator in 1941.

Tlaib tried to justify her heinous remarks to “Late Night” host Seth Meyers by saying that her grandmother lives in the West Bank, which she referred to as “the occupied territories of Palestine” and how many of her ancestors “died” or “gave up their livelihood” to provide that safe haven for Jews, which she wanted to “recognize and honor.”

“I want all of us to feel safe. All of us deserve human dignity, no matter our backgrounds, no matter our ethnicity, no matter even our political opinions, we all deserve that kind of equality and justice. And, you know, for me, I wanted to uplift that and bring that to light and it was unfortunate,” Tlaib explained. “You know, I got a text from a friend who’s like, ‘Hey, next time, you know, really clarify. Maybe talk like a fourth grader because maybe the racist idiots would understand you better.'”

How hard is it to understand what kind of vile human being can have any kind of “calming thoughts” about the horrific death of six million Jews?

In regard to Tlaib’s words, President Trump tweeted, “Democrat Rep. Tlaib is being slammed for her horrible and highly insensitive statement on the Holocaust. She obviously has tremendous hatred of Israel and the Jewish people. Can you imagine what would happen if I ever said what she said, and says?”

The Republican Jewish Coalition said, “The only reason to ever take a ‘calming feeling’ from reflections on the Holocaust is out of hatred for the Jewish people.”

 “Complex History”

Trying to give her an undeserved benefit of the doubt, Seth Meyers responded by saying it “wouldn’t hurt” if everyone spoke on a “fourth-grade level” about the complex history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He also told Tlaib that there’s a “bad-faith argument” regarding the notion that she was “calmed” by the Holocaust, but mentioned that there was a “good-faith argument” that her history was “not in alignment with everyone else.”

Tlaib was widely condemned by GOP lawmakers as well as President Trump, who accused her of “tremendous hatred,” and was widely defended by Democratic lawmakers including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, who called the “smear” attempt “outrageous.”

Even if you want to debate what she was referring to in “feeling calmed,” for the record, she is totally wrong about the picture she is painting of post-World War Two Palestine. Representative Tlaib said that Jews were given “safe haven” in British Mandate Palestine after the Holocaust. This is simply not true. Arabs who lived in British Mandate Palestine did not welcome Jews who fled to their historic homeland before, during and after the Holocaust. In fact, the local Arab leadership worked to bar the entry of Jews to Mandate-era Palestine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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