Rep. Rashida Tlaib to host event marking the ‘catastrophe’ of Israel’s founding

Far-left “Squad” member Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) will host an event with anti-Israel groups at the Capitol Building on Wednesday that decries the founding of the Jewish State as a “catastrophe.” 

The event titled “Nakba 75 & the Palestinian People” uses the Arabic term for the events surrounding the founding of Israel – Nakba – which means “catastrophe.”

“May 15th marks 75 years since the beginning of the Nakba, which means ‘catastrophe,’” reads a description of the event, which will be held at the Capitol Visitor Center. 

“Seventy-five years ago, Zionist militias and the new Israeli military violently expelled approximately three-quarters of all Palestinians from their homes and homeland in what became the state of Israel.”

The organizers of the event also say they hope to educate members of Congress and their staff on the “ongoing Nakba to which Israel continues to subject Palestinians.” 

One of the groups behind the event, Jewish Voice for Peace, is described by the Anti-Defamation League as a “radical anti-Israel activist group that advocates for a complete economic, cultural and academic boycott of the state of Israel” and that “celebrates figures who have been convicted of engaging in terrorism.” 

Earlier this month, Tlaib criticized House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for characterizing Israel as being “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that we are all equal,” by invoking the term “Nakba.” 

“Speaker McCarthy wants to rewrite history but the apartheid state of Israel was born out of violence and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians,” Tlaib wrote in a May 1 tweet. ”75 years later, the Nakba continues to this day.”

Last year, Tlaib authored a resolution, backed by other members of the “Squad,” demanding that the US “commemorate the Nakba through official recognition and remembrance.”

She said the word also refers to “an ongoing process of Israel’s expropriation of Palestinian land and its dispossession of the Palestinian people that continues to this day through the establishment and expansion of approximately 300 illegal settlements and outposts in the occupied Palestinian West Bank in which approximately 674,000 Israelis reside as of 2020.” 

Tlaib, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, said in a tweet at the time that “We must acknowledge that the humanity of Palestinians is being denied when folks refuse to acknowledge the war crimes and human rights violations in apartheid Israel.”

Tlaib’s office did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.

Liora Rez, the executive director of nonprofit group StopAntisemitism, told The Post on Monday that she wishes Tlaib “would spend as much time helping Michigan’s 12th District as she spends demonizing the world’s only Jewish state.”

“She continues to mischaracterize Israel’s history and policies, making her a natural ally for organizations like IMEU, one of the top propagators of false anti-Israel rhetoric on social media,” Rez said in a statement, referencing the Institute for Middle East Understanding – one of the group’s backing the event. 

“The real ‘catastrophe’ is Rep. Tlaib and her allies’ refusal to engage with Zionism in good faith. Fact checks haven’t stopped them because they hold ideology above accuracy; as long as they ignore the reality of Israel’s past, they can’t participate in honest conversations about its present and future,” Rez added.