McCarthy Blocks Tlaib Event Marking Palestinian Displacement

Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, blocked Representative Rashida Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan, on Tuesday from hosting an event on Capitol Hill commemorating the displacement of Palestinians when the state of Israel was created, saying Ms. Tlaib was trafficking in “antisemitic tropes.”

The dinner event scheduled for Wednesday night, called Nakba 75 & the Palestinian People, was planned to commemorate what Palestinians call the nakba, or the disaster, referring to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948 when Israel declared independence.

According to an event page, the evening was intended to “uplift the experiences of Palestinians who underwent the nakba, and educate members of Congress and their staff about this history and the ongoing nakba to which Israel continues to subject Palestinians.” Ms. Tlaib, the first Palestinian American elected to Congress, who has family living in the West Bank, was to be a special guest.

But on Tuesday evening, Mr. McCarthy said he would use his power as speaker to scrap the gathering, telling the conservative Washington Free Beacon: “It’s wrong for members of Congress to traffic in antisemitic tropes about Israel.”

It was the latest flash of partisan tension on Capitol Hill involving Israel, which has long drawn strong bipartisan support in Congress but has become a political battleground in recent years as some progressive Democrats have stepped up their criticism of Israeli policies and Republicans have sought to portray their party as the stronger supporter of the Jewish state. Mr. McCarthy in particular has worked to curry favor with pro-Israel groups and evangelical voters and to drive a wedge among Democrats by calling out liberal lawmakers in their ranks who are critical of Israel.

On Tuesday evening, Mr. McCarthy tweeted that he would host a “bipartisan discussion to honor the 75th anniversary of the US-Israel relationship” in place of the Palestinian event, which was to include several groups that support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which seeks to mobilize international economic and political pressure on Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians. The invitation referred to “Zionist militias” violently expelling Palestinians.

Ms. Tlaib shared four photos on Twitter Wednesday evening from the Capitol with attendees who had planned to go to the original event, commenting, “Let the headlines read ‘McCarthy tries to erase Palestine but fails.’”

Mr. McCarthy’s office did not respond to requests for comment. Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, sidestepped a question about it on Wednesday evening, telling a reporter at the Capitol, “I’m unfamiliar with the specifics of that at the moment.”

Ms. Tlaib has called Israel an “apartheid regime” and supported the B.D.S. movement, drawing a backlash from Republicans and some pro-Israel Democrats.

Jonathan Greenblatt, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote to Mr. McCarthy on Tuesday raising concern about the event and asked him to ensure that spaces controlled by Congress “are not being used to espouse discriminatory and hateful rhetoric.”

“In previous years, many Nakba Day events have devolved into hateful, anti-Israel and even antisemitic language,” Mr. Greenblatt wrote.

On Wednesday, he praised Mr. McCarthy for scrapping the gathering, writing in a tweet that he was “grateful” the speaker took the “rapid action.”

Some House Democratic leaders, on the other hand, defended Ms. Tlaib.

Representative Pete Aguilar of California, the No. 3 Democrat, criticized Mr. McCarthy’s action, saying during a news conference on Wednesday that “people should be allowed to meet, to congregate, to have discussions, to express their viewpoints and ideas.”

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat who has also drawn criticism for condemning Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, said the maneuver from the speaker was “terrible.”

“I think anti-Palestinian sentiment in D.C. in general has long been normalized,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said. “And its very clear that McCarthy is trying to send a message.”