US Reps. Tlaib, Omar sparked a debate against Israel: Analyst
US Muslim Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar have triggered a widespread debate in the US about Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians and American aid to the regime, says an African American journalist in Detroit.
US President Donald Trump “demonizes both Rashida Tlaib as well as Ilhan Omar," said Abayomi Azikiwe, editor at the Pan-African News Wire.
“This has sparked a debate inside the United States over US aid to Israel, which is tens of billions of dollars just over a period of a decade,” Azikiwe said in a phone interview with Press TV on Tuesday.
Tlaib and Omar, the first two Muslim women elected to Congress, are outspoken critics of Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians and vocal supporters of the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement.
The United States and Israel signed an agreement in September 2016 to give Israel $38 billion in military assistance over the next decade, the largest such aid package in US history.
Omar on Monday said that Congress should reconsider the annual US aid allocated to Israel, after the regime banned her and Tlaib from traveling to Jerusalem al-Quds and the occupied West Bank.
Tlaib, with Palestinian roots and Omar, with a Somali origin, were scheduled to arrive in the occupied territories last week on a trip that was initially approved by Israel. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under pressure from Trump, announced that Israel had reversed its position.
Israel then granted Tlaib permission to visit her Palestinian grandmother in the West Bank, but the lawmaker rejected Israel’s offer, accusing the regime of using her family as leverage against her.
Tlaib’s grandmother – Muftiyah Tlaib – lives in the village of Beit Ur al-Fauqa in the West Bank, located about 24 kilometers from the occupied Jerusalem al-Quds.
Muftiyah said she was “proud” of her granddaughter after getting into a diplomatic spat with the Quds-usurping regime of Israel.
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