In a rare move, House lawmakers have censured Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the sole Palestinian American in Congress, over her remarks and actions in response to the Israel-Hamas war.
The censure resolution, authored by Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., passed 234 to 188, with 22 of her fellow Democrats voting for it and four Republicans opposing the measure. A censure vote only requires a simple majority to pass.
The resolution censures Tlaib, D-Mich., for “promoting false narratives regarding the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and for calling for the “destruction of the state of Israel.”
The punishment, while largely symbolic, was a formal public rebuke of her most recent anti-Israel comments made in the wake of the Jewish nation’s war against terror group Hamas.
“If this is not worthy of censure, what is? When you can call for the annihilation of a country and its people, if that’s not worthy of a censure, what is?” McCormick said on the House floor Tuesday.
Tlaib, who has made similar antisemitic and anti-Israel comments in the past, this time has come under bipartisan criticism after sharing a video on social platform X that included the phrase “From the river to the sea,” a pro-Palestinian liberation slogan.
Her critics have pointed out that the rallying cry implicitly calls for the destruction of Israel as a state. Hamas has also co-opted the phrase.
“It is fundamentally a call for a Palestinian state extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, territory that includes the State of Israel, which would mean the dismantling of the Jewish state,” the Anti-Defamation League’s website says. “It is an antisemitic charge denying the Jewish right to self-determination, including through the removal of Jews from their ancestral homeland.”
Tlaib has remained unrepentant over her use of the phrase.
“It is important to separate people and governments,” she said on the House floor earlier in the day. “The idea that criticizing the Israeli government is antisemitic sets a dangerous precedent.”