On May 10, U.S. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, known for her fringe anti-Israel positions, will hold a “Nakba Day” commemoration inside the U.S. Capitol building, alongside numerous other anti-Israel and pro-BDS organizations.
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The event, titled “Nakba 75 & the Palestinian People,” presents the establishment of the State of Israel – the closest ally of the United States in the Middle East – as a “catastrophe” (Nakba in Arabic).
Among the co-sponsoring organizations are Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), known for their fringe anti-Israel positions and support of the BDS movement, as well as the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU), a nonprofit that has praised the late Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist Khader Adnan.
According to the Capitol Visiting Center regulations, only sitting members of Congress and officers of U.S. Congress are allowed to reserve the 400-seat auditorium for events, meaning that the event itself is initiated by Rep. Tlaib or her office itself.
In 2022, Rep. Tlaib introduced a bill in the U.S. House along with fellow Congresswomen Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and others, to recognize the "Palestinian Nakba." The bill, which failed to pass, called on the United States to recognize the Nakba and to hold official events on the subject.
For many years, it’s been a concerted effort of the anti-Israel movement in the United States to promote the narrative of the “Nakba,” a term which Palestinian groups often use to refer to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, and the subsequent war initiated by the Arab nations surrounding Israel. Every year on May 15, many anti-Israel activists will hold “Nakba Day” events, mourning the establishment of Israel.
For Israelis and supporters, the term is highly loaded as it rests on a false intellectual premise that the Palestinians were not offered a state in the first place (they were under the proposed UN partition plan), and that the inability of the Arab states to commit a genocide against the State of Israel in 1948 was a “catastrophe.”
Dr. Logan Levkoff, Chairperson of Caravan for Democracy Leadership Mission to Israel which brings non-Jewish leaders to Israel to learn about the country, said that Tlaib’s performative activism with events such as the Nakba Day event has profound consequences for Jews in America as well.
“Rashida Tlaib has disqualified herself from public office by misrepresenting history, perpetuating antisemitism, and using lies and manipulating American concerns about racism to brazenly stoke anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiments. Antisemitism must not be tolerated whether it comes from the political left or right,” said Dr. Levkoff.
Karys Rhea, a fellow at the Jewish Leadership Project and a Jewish-American activist, said in response to the event, "I really think it speaks to Tlaib's priorities... If you look at her state, there are tremendous problems in Michigan with crime, drugs, infrastructure etc... That she took the time to organize an anti-Zionist event that re-writes history and denies Jewish indigeneity is proof that she's not in Congress to serve the American people, but to normalize antisemitism with false mythologies like the 'Nakba'."