McCarthy Blocks Tlaib Event at Capitol Marking Palestinian Displacement
Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, blocked Representative Rashida Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan, on Tuesday from hosting an event at the Capitol commemorating the displacement of Palestinians when the state of Israel was created, saying Ms. Tlaib was trafficking in “antisemitic tropes.”
The dinner event scheduled for Wednesday night, called Nakba 75 & the Palestinian People, was planned to commemorate what Palestinians call the nakba, or the disaster, referring to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948 when Israel declared independence.
According to an event page, the evening was intended to “uplift the experiences of Palestinians who underwent the nakba, and educate members of Congress and their staff about this history and the ongoing nakba to which Israel continues to subject Palestinians.” Ms. Tlaib, the first Palestinian American elected to Congress, who has family living in the West Bank, was to be a special guest.
But on Tuesday evening, Mr. McCarthy said he would use his power as speaker to scrap the gathering, telling the conservative Washington Free Beacon: “It’s wrong for members of Congress to traffic in antisemitic tropes about Israel.”
Source: The New York Times
