Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) blamed "racist idiots" on Monday for criticizing her false historical narrative about Palestinian Arabs assisting Jews after the Holocaust.
Tlaib, a supporter of a "one-state solution" to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, praised her Arab ancestors for giving up their "dignity" and "lives" to help Jews who survived the Holocaust, while also complaining the situation was "forced" on them, all while adding this part of the history of the Holocaust gave her a "calming" feeling:
There's kind of a calming feeling I always tell folks when I think of the Holocaust, and the tragedy of the Holocaust, and the fact that it was my ancestors, Palestinians, who lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, their human dignity, their existence in many ways, have been wiped out, and some people's passports. I mean, just all of it was in the name of trying to create a safe haven for Jews, post-the Holocaust, post-the tragedy and the horrific persecution of Jews across the world at that time, and I love the fact that it was my ancestors that provided that, right, in many ways. But they did it in a way that took their human dignity away, right, and it was forced on them. And so when I think about a one-state, I think about the fact that, why couldn't we do it in a better way?
NBC late-night host Seth Meyers, an open supporter of Democrats, allowed Tlaib to provide "context" for her comments in a sycophantic interview on Monday. Tlaib again said her ancestors died or gave up their "human dignity" to "provide a safe haven for Jews in our world," and she said she wanted to honor that. Her remarks were again false, but Meyers provided no pushback.
"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 said. "You know, I got a text message 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.'"
The crowd laughed and applauded.
"I will continue to speak truth to power and continue to uplift my grandmother through love and that's all I can do is continue to share the human impact of what it means to be Palestinian in the occupied territories," Tlaib said.
Meyers groveled that it was good to have a Palestinian perspective, since there wasn't one in the media. The same host jumped on conservative pundit Meghan McCain last week for criticizing anti-Semitic remarks by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), leading McCain to ask if he was the congresswoman's publicist. Meyers insisted he was trying to find "common ground," although Meyers doesn't trouble to hide his liberal politics and cried over Hillary Clinton's election loss.
Media outlets like the Washington Post focused on Republican criticism of Tlaib's use of the word "calming" regarding the Holocaust and deemed it a false smear to accuse her of anti-Semitism. Liberal New York Magazine writer Jonathan Chait complained Tlaib was being criticized for saying something "nice" about Israel, although he wrote in the same article that Tlaib "regrets the establishment of the state of Israel."
However, CNN host John King ripped Tlaib's historic illiteracy.
Tlaib "ignored the fact that Palestinian leaders at the time allied themselves with Hitler and that total war is how the Arab world reacted to the declaration of Israeli independence," King said before a segment on the controversy.
Tablet reported on hundreds of Jews who survived the Holocaust only to be killed by Arabs opposed to Israeli independence. The Free Beacon's Aaron Kliegman wrote the Palestinian Arabs did not try, as Tlaib falsely claimed, to create a safe haven for Jews in British-administered Palestine, but in fact did the opposite:
From 1936 to 1939, the Palestinian Arabs revolted against the British for allowing Jews into the land, leading London to issue the White Paper of 1939, which significantly cut Jewish immigration to Palestine for the first five years and then made it contingent on Arab consent—in other words, ending it altogether. So, because of the Palestinian Arabs' violent revolts, Jews were unable to escape Nazi oppression in Europe and flee to their ancient homeland, trapping them in Hitler's genocidal prison.
Even more egregious, the aforementioned Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who was the Sunni Muslim cleric in charge of the city's Islamic holy sites from 1921 to 1948, was not only a raging anti-Semite, but also a rabid supporter of Hitler's "Final Solution" to exterminate European Jewry. Indeed, the German record of Hitler's meeting with the Mufti notes that, according to the latter, "the Arabs were Germany's natural friends because they had the same enemies as had Germany, namely the English, the Jews, and the communists. Therefore they were prepared to cooperate with Germany with all their hearts and stood ready to participate in the war, not only negatively by the commission of acts of sabotage and the instigation of revolutions, but also positively by the formation of an Arab Legion." Thwarting the creation of a Jewish state was central to this most unholy of alliances. "Germany stood for uncompromising war against the Jews," Hitler said, according to the record. "That naturally included active opposition to the Jewish national home in Palestine, which was nothing other than a center, in the form of a state, for the exercise of destructive influence by Jewish interests."
They continued to oppose Israel's creation after World War II ended.
"So, to sum up, Tlaib's ancestors, who she says sacrificed everything to create a safe haven for the Jews in Palestine, actually forced Britain to block Jews from going there, collaborated with the Nazis to keep the Jews away from the Middle East and in Europe's concentration camps, and then refused to live alongside the Jews and waged war to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state. How did any of that help the Jews exactly?" Kliegman wrote.
The Anti-Defamation League already criticized Tlaib for invoking the dual loyalty canard in January, when she tweeted pro-Israel U.S. Senators "forgot what country they represent" when they supported an anti-BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) bill. Tlaib and Omar, the first two Muslim women elected to Congress, both support BDS, which Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) has condemned as anti-Semitic.