Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) late last week decried as racist a cartoon that lampooned her history of supporting terrorism against Israel.
The cartoon, by Henry Payne, was published Thursday in National Review. It showed Tlaib sitting behind her desk as her pager exploded.
“Odd,” Tlaib says in the cartoon. “My pager just exploded.”
Cartoon: Tlaib Pager Hamashttps://t.co/wdwWCbCgmj pic.twitter.com/8AF3kA8Llk
— Henry Payne (@HenryEPayne) September 19, 2024
The cartoon was a reference to Israel detonating pagers that it secretly manufactured and sold to Hezbollah, and detonated once they were in terrorists’ hands. The operation killed dozens of terrorists, and wounded thousands more.
“Our community is already in so much pain right now,” Tlaib posted on X. “This racism will incite more hate + violence against our Arab & Muslim communities, and it makes everyone less safe. It’s disgraceful that the media continues to normalize this racism.”
Numerous far-left members of Congress attacked the cartoon, calling it “racist” and “Islamophobic.”
But Hussain Abdul-Hussain, Research Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said that there was “nothing racist” about the cartoon.
“This cartoon is against Tlaib for her support of Hezbollah and Hamas,” he said. “Tlaib represents some Arabs and Muslims in America and her own opinion, but NOT all Arabs and Muslims in America, many of whom vehemently oppose her views.”
“To lump all Arabs and Muslims in American into one person —Tlaib — is racism,” he added. “We, Arabs and Muslims, are — like all other races and religions — diverse and have clashing views, and no one person embodies or symbolizes all of us, unless you think we all look and think the same.”
Tlaib has long shown support and sympathies for anti-Semitic extremists, terror groups, and attacks on Israel, and has been photographed with an alleged Hezbollah supporter.
Israel banned Tlaib from entering the country in 2019, after they learned of her plans to meet with extremist groups dedicated to “harm[ing] Israel and increas[ing] incitement against it.”
Tlaib has called for the elimination of the state of Israel following Hamas’ unprecedented October 7 attack, in which terrorists murdered 1,200 people. She was censured by Congress for supporting genocide against Israel by lying about how Israel has conducted itself in its war with Hamas.
She has since spoken at an event that has connections to Islamic terrorist groups.
Let’s discuss the @detroitnews cartoon and how everyone who attacked it was racist.
Had the woman behind the desk been depicted as a generic Arab or Muslim man or woman — for example with a hijab or a male headdress — and without her name in front of her, while showing a blown… pic.twitter.com/cBTZOG6Wzj
— Hussain Abdul-Hussain (@hahussain) September 21, 2024
Tlaib refused to condemn Hamas for raping Israeli women, and would not condemn Hamas’ beheadings of Israeli babies.
