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November 24, 2023

Ardent anti-Israel Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D) thanked and praised one of the anti-Zionist Jewish groups that violent assaulted the Democratic National Committee headquarters on Capitol Hill on Nov. 15, where six officers were injured and Tlaib’s Democratic colleagues had to be whisked away by police for their safety.

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She told a Nov. 20 organizing webinar by the group If Not Now:  “As someone who is the only Palestinian American in Congress, when I am looking through and see you doing all of this,  it makes me march on floor a little bit stronger.  When I go on the house floor, despite being censured, your group makes me feel I am not alone.”

Tlaib made no mention of the more than 200 Israeli and international citizens, including infants, who Hamas took hostage in its Oct. 7 assault on Israel, nor the more than 1,200 Israelis killed including decapitated babies and girls sexually mutilated at a kibbutz outside Gaza  

But she said:

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“One day, I pray that everything we are doing, my grandmother will be able to pick her olives and figs in a free Palestine.”

Six Capitol police officers were injured in the assault, causing all House and Senate buildings to be locked down for the evening.  House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and pro-Israel Jewish Democrats Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL) and Brad Sherman (CA) were among those at the DNC HQ gathering, which is just a stone’s throw from the House office buildings.  They condemned the actions of the protesters

But in the video, Tlaib appears undaunted, even about her Nov. 10 House censure, which was supported by 22 Democrats, for stating: “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

Founded in 2014 during the Hamas rocketing of Israel, a conflict that lasted three months, If Not Now takes its name from Rabbi Hillel’s immortal words during Roman times: “If not now, when?” It opposes the “Israeli government system of “apartheid” but touts the lofty goal of Jews and Arabs living together in peace.  It largely comprises younger Jews who also support socialism, “environmental justice,” and other far-left causes.

While in the minority of Jewish opinion on Israel, the group’s confrontational street protest tactics and aggressive lobbying has achieved a modicum of success in the last few weeks. Tlaib and others noted on the call that the number of U.S. House members calling for a ceasefire in Gaza has grown from 13 to 41, and two U.S. senators also are “coming on board.”

Webinar attendees included a group leader, who called herself “Gen,” and described herself as a “mixed race, queer, Asian American Jewish woman” whose pronounces are “She and her” and is part of If Not Now’s BIJOCSM “space,” which stands for Black, Indigenous, Jewish of Color, Sephardic and Mizrahi