House votes to censure Rashida Tlaib over anti-Israel comments

The House of Representatives has voted to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., in a 234 – 188 vote on Tuesday night. 

The punishment, while largely symbolic, was a formal public rebuke of her most recent anti-Israel comments made in the wake of the Jewish nation’s war against terror group Hamas. 

Twenty-two Democrats voted with 212 Republicans to censure Tlaib. Four GOP lawmakers voted against the measure. Four lawmakers voted present. The measure was introduced by freshman Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., on Monday. 

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“If this is not worthy of censure, what is? When you can call for the annihilation of a country and its people, if that’s not worthy of a censure, what is?” McCormick said on the House floor Tuesday. 

In the text of his resolution, the Georgia Republican accused Tlaib of “promoting false narratives regarding the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and for calling for the destruction of the state of Israel.”

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Tlaib, the only Palestinian-American in Congress, has come under bipartisan criticism after sharing a video on social platform X that included the phrase “From the river to the sea,” a pro-Palestinian liberation slogan.

Her critics have pointed out that the rallying cry implicitly calls for the destruction of Israel as a state. Hamas has also co-opted the phrase.

“It is fundamentally a call for a Palestinian state extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, territory that includes the State of Israel, which would mean the dismantling of the Jewish state,” the Anti-Defamation League’s website says. “It is an antisemitic charge denying the Jewish right to self-determination, including through the removal of Jews from their ancestral homeland.”

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Tlaib has remained unrepentant over her use of the phrase. 

“It is important to separate people and governments,” she said on the House floor earlier in the day. “The idea that criticizing the Israeli government is antisemitic sets a dangerous precedent.”

The House voted to advance McCormick’s resolution earlier on Tuesday, when a vote to kill the measure was defeated 208 to 213, with one lawmaker voting “present.” 

A resolution to censure Tlaib, brought by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., failed to advance to a vote last week.