During left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore's screamed-out slam poem about Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) last month, he said "Ramallah's distant daughter" represented an America where "every woman controls her own identity, her own body!"
Moore made an effort to square the circle of both staunch liberal activism and support for the repressive Palestinian society. However, it's worth noting that while the United States has one of the most liberal abortion laws in the world, abortion is illegal in the Palestinian territories, and women are routinely subjugated in the male-dominated society.
The West Bank city of Ramallah serves as the de facto capital of the Palestinian Authority, and Tlaib is the first Palestinian-American elected to Congress. Moore, a Michigan native, praised Tlaib effusively in front of the Institute for Middle East Understanding, a pro-Palestinian group.
"Rashida means resist! Rashida means revolt! Rashida means represent! Rashida means reclaim! Rashida means reparate!" he yelled. "Rashida means reimagine America where no one goes hungry, no one sleeps in the snow, everyone sees the doctor! Everyone goes to a great school! Everyone shares the pie! Everyone has a seat at the table! Everyone is treated equally! And every woman controls her own identity, her own body!"
Reuters reported women in the Palestinian-controlled West Bank and Gaza Strip will turn to Israel at times if in desire of an abortion. Tlaib and Moore, like many on the far left, are staunch critics of Israel.
The Palestinian Authority did take a large step forward for women's rights last year, when President Mahmoud Abbas signed a repeal of a law that allowed rapists to marry their victims to avoid prosecution.
Moore hailed Tlaib for her activism against Israel in the speech. Tlaib supports the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, which has been slammed as anti-Semitic by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and condemned by the Anti-Defamation League.
"The cry of the oppressed and the occupied every day shoots life through her very bones. She will not, she cannot forget," Moore said. "Their cries, their screams are now heard through her very existence in the halls of the great Congress. They cannot now pretend not to hear it. The slaughter at the Gaza wall, Netanyahu's wall, Trump's wall, our wall, has been brought into the grand chamber of the people's House."