Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) has now turned her guns on HBO’s “Real Time” host Bill Maher for daring to criticize the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement as a hateful anti-Israel political sentiment with little or no goal beyond the destruction of the Jewish state.
“Maybe folks should boycott his show,” Tlaib tweeted, according to Deadline. “I am tired of folks discrediting a form of speech that is centered on equality and freedom. This is exactly how they tried to discredit & stop the boycott to stand up against the apartheid in S. Africa. It didn’t work then and it won’t now.”
On Friday, Maher pivoted his criticism away from Trump and conservatives and toward Tlaib and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) for supporting the BDS movement. His attack came shortly after the pair were barred from entering Israel for having an agenda entirely in opposition to the country’s existence.
“It’s a bulls*** purity test, BDS is a bulls*** purity test by people who want to appear ‘woke’ but actually slept through history class,” Maher said. “It’s predicated on this notion — I think, it’s very shallow thinking — that the Jews in Israel are mostly white and Palestinians are browner, so they must be innocent and correct and the Jews must be wrong. As if the occupation came right out of the blue, that this ‘completely peaceful people’ found themselves occupied. Forget about the intifadas and the suicide bombings and the rockets and how many wars.”
Maher ultimately understood the bans imposed by Israel against Omar and Tlaib given their anti-Semitic pasts.
“Congresswoman Omar has said things like, ‘It’s all about the Benjamins,’ ‘Israel has hypnotized the world,’ ‘May Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel,'” Maher said. “She apologized for it, but it’s out there: Jews control the world, control the money.”
Though Rep. Rashida Tlaib has cast herself as the victim in this whole affair, there is speculation that her planned trip to Israel was really just a stunt on her part, given that Israel still granted her a pass to visit her grandmother in the West Bank on humanitarian grounds, which she subsequently turned down.
“Silencing me & treating me like a criminal is not what she wants for me,” said Tlaib. “It would kill a piece of me. I have decided that visiting my grandmother under these oppressive conditions stands against everything I believe in — fighting against racism, oppression & injustice.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Ayre Deri said Tlaib’s refusal to even visit her grandmother proves that her hatred for Israel outweighs her love of family. “I approved her request as a gesture of goodwill on a humanitarian basis, but it was just a provocative request, aimed at bashing the State of Israel. Apparently, her hate for Israel overcomes her love for her grandmother,” he said.
Despite all eyes being on Omar and Tlaib’s anti-Semitic behavior, neither one seems to have learned their lesson in the wake of this ordeal. As noted by The Daily Wire’s Ryan Saavedra, both members of congress were recently seen promoting a cartoonist’s work on Twitter who has previously mocked Holocaust victims.