David Friedman, who served as U.S. ambassador to Israel under former President Donald Trump, unloaded on Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib (MI) following her censure from the House on Tuesday.
Nearly two dozen House Democrats voted to censure Tlaib for &#8220;promoting false narratives&#8221; about the Hamas attacks on Israel and &#8220;calling for the destruction of the state of Israel,&#8221; the resolution said. The Democrat has accused Israel of &#8220;genocide&#8221; and defended the controversial slogan &#8220;from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,&#8221; which suggests Israel should not exist.
&#8220;Listen you virulent antisemite, just answer one question: Does Israel have a right to exist?&#8221; Friedman posed to Tlaib via X on Tuesday. &#8220;If you say no, leave Congress as a treasonous Jew hater. If you say yes, then explain how Israel can exist with Hamas on its border. You can’t. That’s why Israel is at war with Hamas.&#8221;
&#8220;Unfortunately there are casualties of war but Israel is doing all it can to avoid them,&#8221; the former ambassador added. &#8220;In contrast, Hamas is doing all it can to increase those casualties — dead Palestinian children are an integral component of its military strategy.&#8221;
&#8220;So either condemn Hamas or leave our country and join them,&#8221; Friedman closed.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Listen you virulent antisemite, just answer one question: Does Israel have a right to exist? If you say no, leave Congress as a treasonous Jew hater. If you say yes, then explain how Israel can exist with Hamas on its border. You can’t. That’s why Israel is at war with Hamas.… <a href="https://t.co/jYj5j0UMzJ">https://t.co/jYj5j0UMzJ</a>
&mdash; David M Friedman (@DavidM_Friedman) <a href="https://twitter.com/DavidM_Friedman/status/1721975589026898254?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 7, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Tlaib took to X following the censure to complain that her colleagues were silencing her and accuse those who voted for the resolution of not caring about Palestinian lives.
“Rather than acknowledge the voice and perspective of the only Palestinian American in Congress, my colleagues have resorted to distorting my positions in resolutions filled with obvious lies,&#8221; she wrote, adding, &#8220;I will continue to call for a mutual ceasefire, for the release of hostages and those arbitrarily detained, for the immediate delivery of humanitarian aid, and for every American to be brought home. I will continue to work for a just and lasting peace that upholds the human rights and dignity of all people, centers peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians, and ensures that no person, no child has to suffer or live in fear of violence.”
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Tlaib also said her &#8220;perspective&#8221; as the &#8220;only Palestinian American serving in Congress is needed here now more than ever.&#8221;
&#8220;Your &#8216;perspective&#8217; is to create an equivalency between ruthless murderers, rapists and baby killers and those confronting them,&#8221; Friedman reacted. &#8220;To be honest, that perspective really isn’t needed right now — it just adds insult to injury.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Your “perspective” is to create an equivalency between ruthless murderers, rapists and baby killers and those confronting them. To be honest, that perspective really isn’t needed right now — it just adds insult to injury. <a href="https://t.co/ZuPfqhwn95">https://t.co/ZuPfqhwn95</a>
&mdash; David M Friedman (@DavidM_Friedman) <a href="https://twitter.com/DavidM_Friedman/status/1722033294299000845?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 7, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/u-s-house-votes-to-censure-democrat-rashida-tlaib-for-supporting-genocide-of-israel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">U.S. House Votes To Censure Democrat Rashida Tlaib For Supporting Genocide Of Israel</a>

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (R-MI) speaks at a press conference calling for the expansion of the Supreme Court on July 18, 2022 in Washington, DC.

‘You Virulent Antisemite’: Trump-Era Ambassador To Israel Unloads On Rashida Tlaib Following Censure For Anti-Israel Comments

Trump Era Ambassador To Israel Unloads On Rashida Tlaib, Following Censure For Anti-Israel Comments 

censure

Congress

David Friedman

Politics

Rashida Tlaib

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) espoused an age-old anti-Semitic canard on Thursday after he accused the U.S. Ambassador to Israel on Thursday of having dual loyalty to America and the Jewish state.
&#8220;Dear [U.S. Ambassador]: You are an American. Your allegiance should be to America, not to a foreign power,&#8221; Lieu tweeted. &#8220;You should be defending the right of Americans to travel to other countries. If you don&#8217;t understand that, then you need to resign.&#8221;
Lieu&#8217;s remarks were in response to a statement Ambassador David Friedman issued in support of Israel&#8217;s decision to block two anti-Israel Congresswomen from visiting the country.
The Israeli government revealed a day earlier that <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50657/israel-blocks-tlaib-and-omar-visiting-trump-agrees-molly-prince">it would deny entry</a> to progressive Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MN) over their advocacy of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to punish Israel by politically and economically starving the country.
The Israeli Knesset passed an anti-BDS law in 2017 that enables the government to block foreign activists from gaining entry to the country.
Friedman acknowledged that the BDS movement is &#8220;economic warfare designed to delegitimize and ultimately destroy the Jewish State&#8221; and therefore respects the country&#8217;s decision to deny the progressive duo entry into the country.
<div>
<blockquote>Please read my attached statement with regard to the decision of the Government of Israel to deny entry to BDS activists, Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, in accordance with its national laws. <a href="https://t.co/q9M2N1uRkr">pic.twitter.com/q9M2N1uRkr</a>
— David M. Friedman (@USAmbIsrael) <a href="https://twitter.com/USAmbIsrael/status/1162038851680051200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 15, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Like the United States, Israel is a nation of laws,&#8221; Friedman wrote. &#8220;We support Israel&#8217;s application of its laws in this case.&#8221;
The California congressman echoed his accusation while appearing on &#8220;The Situation Room,&#8221; where he called on Friedman to step down from his position.
&#8220;It is outrageous that the U.S. government is working against having an American go visit a relative in Israel,&#8221; Lieu told CNN&#8217;s Wolf Blitzer. &#8220;Ambassador Friedman, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, I think he should resign because he doesn’t understand that his allegiance is to America, not to a foreign power.&#8221;
After facing widespread blowback for accusing the ambassador of dual loyalty, Lieu deleted his original post.
&#8220;It has been brought to my attention that my prior tweet to [the U.S. Ambassador] raises dual loyalty allegations that have historically caused harm to the Jewish community,&#8221; Lieu said in response. &#8220;That is a legitimate concern. I am therefore deleting the tweet.&#8221;
<div>
<blockquote>It has been brought to my attention that my prior tweet to <a href="https://twitter.com/USAmbIsrael?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@USAmbIsrael</a> raises dual loyalty allegations that have historically caused harm to the Jewish community. That is a legitimate concern. I am therefore deleting the tweet.
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) <a href="https://twitter.com/tedlieu/status/1162160159977639936?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 16, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Lieu, however, refrained from deleting a host of other tweets that he sent to various non-Jewish Republicans where he made similar accusations.
&#8220;Hey Rep. Mo Brooks: A reminder that you are an American Member of Congress. Your allegiance should be to America,&#8221; <a href="https://twitter.com/tedlieu/status/1162129674295603200?s=20">Lieu wrote</a> to the Alabama congressman. &#8220;We are Americans first. You should be defending the right of Americans to travel to other countries. Get it?&#8221;
&#8220;Hey [Rep.] Steve Scalise: You are an American Member of Congress. Your allegiance should be to America, not to a foreign government,&#8221; he wrote in a<a href="https://twitter.com/tedlieu/status/1162140344185528320?s=20"> separate tweet</a>. &#8220;You should be defending the right of Americans to travel to other countries. If you don&#8217;t understand that, you should find another line of work.&#8221;
Lieu also thanked Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) for calling on Israel to &#8220;stand up to President Trump&#8221; and allow both Omar and Tlaib to visit the country.
<div>
<blockquote>Thank you <a href="https://twitter.com/justinamash?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@justinamash</a> for understanding that, as an American Member of Congress, your loyalty is to America, not to a foreign government. Thank you for defending the right of Americans, even though they disagree with you politically, to travel to other countries. <a href="https://t.co/xEnG2vgFhs">https://t.co/xEnG2vgFhs</a>
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) <a href="https://twitter.com/tedlieu/status/1162148250486333440?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 15, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
While the California congressman deleted his tweet to the Ambassador, he has yet to apologize for the accusation.

Ted Lieu

Democratic Lawmaker Makes Anti-Semitic Claim About U.S. Ambassador

Israel

There may trouble in paradise. After a smooth honeymoon period, President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appear to be at odds over the legal status of Jerusalem.
Ahead of Trump&#8217;s first international trip as president to the Middle East, the Netanyahu government is reeling over comments made by administration officials.
The Jerusalem Post <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/PMO-refutes-Fox-reporters-claim-that-Netanyahu-asked-Trump-not-to-move-the-embassy-490806">reports</a>:
<blockquote>
The drama unfolded when a senior White House official said that the Western Wall was part of the West Bank and not part of Israel&#8217;s territory, as Channel 2 reported on Monday.
&#8220;The Western Wall is not in your territory,&#8221; the official reportedly said. 
It seems that the official was prompted to make the statement after members of Netanyahu&#8217;s team asked if Netanyahu could join Trump on the visit to the Western Wall and whether Israeli photographers could document the event, to which the Americans replied that the Western Wall was a &#8220;disputed territory.&#8221;
According to Channel 2, the same official told members of Netanyahu&#8217;s team that Trump&#8217;s visit to the Western Wall was a private visit and also added: &#8220;No way, why is this your business?&#8221;
The official allegedly went on to say: &#8220;This is not your territory but rather part of the West Bank.&#8221;
</blockquote>
According to <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/senior-member-of-trump-team-said-to-tell-israelis-western-wall-is-not-your-territory/">The Times of Israel</a>, a senior official from the Netanyahu government has confirmed these reports.
While the official said that the Netanyahu government does not believe that the Trump team&#8217;s remarks reflect White House policy, Israeli officials were so upset over the U.S. delegations position on Jerusalem that a shouting match erupted between representatives of the two countries.
&#8220;These comments led to vociferous protests by the Israelis, with the discussion descending into shouting, and the Israelis reminding the U.S. team that the Western Wall and adjacent area &#8216;is territory holy to Israel,&#8217; reports The Times of Israel, adding:
<blockquote>
In a statement reported by Channel 2, an official at the Prime Minister&#8217;s Office said that &#8220;the comment that the Western Wall is part of the West Bank was received with astonishment&#8221; but that &#8220;Israel is certain that the comment contradicts President Trump&#8217;s policy as expressed in his fierce opposition to the latest UN Security Council resolution&#8221; &#8212; a reference to UNSC Resolution 2334 from last December, which rejected Israeli rights in Jerusalem and which Trump publicly opposed. &#8220;Israel has asked the US about this,&#8221; the PMO official said.
</blockquote>
As The Times of Israel notes, the spat between Israeli and U.S. officials occurred shortly after U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, a staunch supporter of the Jewish State, made a personal trip with his family to the Western Wall to say some prayers.
&#8220;We&#8217;re a bit tired, but we wanted to come straight to the holiest place in the entire Jewish world, the &#8216;Kotel Hama&#8217;aravi,&#8217; the Western Wall, so we straight came here,&#8221; Friedman <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/senior-member-of-trump-team-said-to-tell-israelis-western-wall-is-not-your-territory/">said</a>, according to U.S. Embassy.
To wit, Friedman&#8217;s piety is grounded in two millennia of Jewish history. The Western Wall is considered to be on holy ground because of what lies behind it, the Temple Mount. Directly behind the Wall stood the First and Second Temples. The tunnel next to the visible part of the Wall which runs parallel to the Wall gives visitors the chance to stop and pray on the other side of the Wall from what was the Holy of Holies, the holiest place on earth for Jews, which could only be entered once a year by the High Priest on Yom Kippur. The Temple served as a religious and political capital to two Jewish Commonwealths and was the destination for a nationwide pilgrimage three times a year.
The Western Wall has witnessed some of history&#8217;s most powerful empires subjugate the Jewish people in Israel. While those empires have disappeared from history, the Wall still stands. Throughout all of this, the Jewish people have survived. The Western Wall is a living testament to the Jewish will to survive.
What makes these reports about the Trump teams behavior so disturbing is the fact that they play into the hands of Israel&#8217;s most hostile enemies.
 As The Daily Wire <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/9929/jew-hating-un-yeah-jews-have-nothing-do-temple-joshua-yasmeh">reported</a> last October, &#8220;UNESCO, the politicized &#8216;cultural&#8217; arm of the United Nations, passed a resolution designed to erase more than 3000 years of Jewish history. The unequivocally anti-Jewish resolution posits that Jews have no connection to the Temple Mount. Of course, the sick irony here is that it was the Jews that built the Temple Mount, a structure now increasingly occupied by colonialist Arab-Muslims.&#8221;
At the time, &#8220;[t]he United States led the charge against the resolution, followed by the United Kingdom, Germany, Holland, Lithuania and Estonia,&#8221; according to The Daily Wire&#8217;s <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/9929/jew-hating-un-yeah-jews-have-nothing-do-temple-joshua-yasmeh">report</a>.
Adding insult to injury, the Trump team&#8217;s &#8220;<a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/senior-member-of-trump-team-said-to-tell-israelis-western-wall-is-not-your-territory/">shocking</a>&#8221; behavior came as top officials telegraphed the administration&#8217;s apparent reconsideration of the president&#8217;s vow to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.
&#8220;On Sunday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson shared the Trump administration&#8217;s renewed efforts to advance a peace initiative between the Israelis and Palestinians,&#8221; <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/16477/uh-oh-trump-pushing-another-middle-east-peace-deal-michael-qazvini">noted</a> The Daily Wire. &#8220;In an interview with NBC&#8217;s Chuck Todd, Tillerson appeared to walk back Trump&#8217;s vow to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, asserting that such a move would hinge on diplomatic talks moving forward.&#8221;
Tillerson&#8217;s remarks prompted immediate pushback by the Israeli prime minister himself.
&#8220;Israel&#8217;s position has been stated many times to the U.S. government and to the world,&#8221; Netanyahu <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/senior-member-of-trump-team-said-to-tell-israelis-western-wall-is-not-your-territory/">asserted</a>. &#8220;Moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem &#8230; will advance [the peace process] by correcting a historical wrong and by shattering the Palestinian fantasy that Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel.&#8221;
Trump&#8217;s trip to Israel and the West Bank, scheduled for May 22-23, is unlikely to mirror Netanyahu&#8217;s trip to Washington, D.C.
Laughs and smiles may now be replaced with shouts and frowns as Israeli officials come to terms with a polarized U.S. administration that doesn&#8217;t mean what it says.

Trump Administration To Israel: Western Wall Not Your Territory.  Israel Responds With ‘Astonishment’ And Shock.

Donald Trump

Jerusalem

The Associated Press <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/8f583a44fa2a4387a8580d5b4fa8abc5/trumps-ambassador-pick-well-known-figure-west-bank">wrote</a> a story about David Friedman, President Trump&#8217;s nominee for Ambassador to Israel, featuring an image of a man holding a Palestinian flag behind him. AP labeled him as a simple &#8220;protestor.&#8221; What it did not know was that the individual behind it is one of the most sinister individuals in the United States of America.
His name is <a href="https://canarymission.org/individuals/taher-herzallah/">Taher Herzallah</a>. He has a long record of anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and pro-Hamas activity. He first earned recognition for being a part of the infamous &#8220;Irvine 11,&#8221; a moniker describing the 11 students at University of California, Irvine who got <a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/09/irvine-11-sentenced-probation-no-jail-time.html">arrested</a> for disrupting a speech by then Israeli ambassador and now Member of the Knesset Michael Oren. He was charged with disrupting a peaceful assembly.
After graduating from UC Irvine, Herzallah started working for an organization called American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) at first as a National Campus Coordinator. Today, he is the Associate Director of Outreach &amp; Grassroots Organizing. AMP <a href="http://www.ampalestine.org/">describes</a> itself as &#8220;a national education and grassroots-based organization, dedicated to educating the American public about Palestine and its rich cultural, historical and religious heritage.&#8221; In his capacity, Herzallah works alongside student-run chapters of the Muslim Students Association (MSA) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) to organize viciously anti-Israel activities across the United States, including mock checkpoints, apartheid walls, and anti-Semitic speakers.
AMP&#8217;s board of directors consists of a handful of members who were part of the now-defunct &#8220;Palestine Committee,&#8221; a group that the Investigative Project on Terrorism <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/4891/investigation-exposes-amp-leaders-ties-to-former">said</a> was &#8220;created by the Muslim Brotherhood to advance Hamas&#8217; agenda politically and financially in the United States.&#8221; The Palestine Committee was connected to the Holy Land Foundation, a charity that the Justice Department <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/case/65/us-v-holy-land-foundation">dismantled and exposed </a>as a financier to Hamas. The committee also <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/case_docs/717.pdf">contained</a> representatives from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group that represents itself as a civil rights group for the American Muslim community.
Given Herzallah&#8217;s employment with an organization connected to Hamas financiers and terrorist supporters, it makes sense that Herzallah has been quoted saying the <a href="http://blog.adl.org/international/calls-for-violence-israel-annual-american-muslims-for-palestine-conference-chicago">following</a>:
<blockquote>
Israelis have to be bombed, they are a threat to the legit­i­macy of Pales­tine, and it is wrong to main­tain the State of Israel. It is an ille­git­i­mate cre­ation born from colo­nial­ism and racism.
</blockquote>
He has also expressed support for creating an Islamic state and for radical Islamic terrorism at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A9pR_F0tPE&amp;feature=youtu.be&amp;t=28s">AMP&#8217;s National Conference</a> in 2014:
<blockquote>
 What if, as Muslims we wanted to establish an Islamic State? What if as Muslims we wanted to use violent means to resist occupation? Is that wrong?
</blockquote>
He has also advocated for destroying Israel and replacing it with a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuJz43YVC3s&amp;feature=youtu.be&amp;t=4365">Judenrein &#8220;Palestine&#8221;</a>:
<blockquote>
Many of us do not limit our discourse on a future Palestine based on the 1967 lines. Many of us are still talking about to this day, I fully free Palestine. A free historic Palestine.
</blockquote>
This is an excellent representation of the kinds of individuals protesting the next U.S. Ambassador to Israel. Herzallah does not want to see the existence of a Jewish state alongside a future Palestinian state like J Street claims to advocate for. He does not want to see the Jewish people live in their ancestral homeland according to international law. Herzallah is a terrorist apologist bankrolled by organizations run by former Hamas financiers teaching college students to hate Israel, the Jewish people, and to harass them on college campuses.
The Associated Press may see Herzallah as a simple &#8220;protestor&#8221;; Americans should see him as the deplorable human being working to undermine the values that the United States holds dear in the name of &#8220;social justice.&#8221;
Follow Elliott on <a href="https://twitter.com/ElliottRHams">Twitter</a> and on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ElliottRHams/">Facebook</a>.

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David Friedman

‘You Virulent Antisemite’: Trump-Era Ambassador To Israel Unloads On Rashida Tlaib Following Censure For Anti-Israel Comments

Democratic Lawmaker Makes Anti-Semitic Claim About U.S. Ambassador

Trump Administration To Israel: Western Wall Not Your Territory. Israel Responds With ‘Astonishment’ And Shock.

The Man Holding The PLO Flag Behind David Friedman