Hamas, a terrorist group powerful in Palestine’s Gaza Strip, attacked Saturday on Israeli soil, and Israel declared war for the first time in 50 years.
Amid this generation-defining event, Democrat Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan took the opportunity to chant her prefab slogans. She called the terrorist attack a “resistance,” and she faced some actual resistance in response.
“I grieve the Palestinian and Israeli lives lost yesterday, today, and every day,” Tlaib said in a Sunday statement to The Detroit News.
“I am determined as ever to fight for a just future where everyone can live in peace, without fear and with true freedom, equal rights, and human dignity. The path to that future must include lifting the blockade, ending the occupation, and dismantling the apartheid system that creates the suffocating, dehumanizing conditions that can lead to resistance.”
Tlaib is a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, and she sits on the House’s Committee on Civil Liberties.
She went on, “As long as our country provides billions in unconditional funding to support the apartheid government, this heartbreaking cycle of violence will continue.”
The Michigan Democrat made a similar remark on the House floor earlier this year. She even used the exact word: “unconditional.”
Take a look —
Rep. Rashida Tlaib argues to "end unconditional support for Israel's apartheid government" on the House floor pic.twitter.com/Noi1r4Ocom
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) January 11, 2023
Statement from @RepRashida Tlaib pic.twitter.com/1GdpREtLqZ
— Melissa Nann Burke (@nannburke) October 8, 2023
After Sunday’s statement, Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., slammed Tlaib for downplaying terrorism by calling it “resistance.”
“Shame on anyone who glorifies as ‘resistance’ the largest single-day mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust,” Torres said in a statement to Marc Rod of Jewish Insider. “It is reprehensible and repulsive.”
Torres concluded by calling for additional aid, without any strings attached.
“U.S. aid to Israel is and should be unconditional, and never more so than in this moment of critical need. Congress must act decisively to provide Israel with whatever it needs to defend itself in the face of unprecedented terrorism,” Torres said.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.