GOP Lawmaker Really Doesn't Want Rep. Rashida Tlaib to Let Lawmakers Know What Life Is Like in Occupied West Bank

Newly-elected Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) wants to offer members of Congress an alternative to the “sugar-coated” junket to Israel the American Israel Public Affairs Committee-affiliated group offers members of Congress by leading a delegation to the West Bank. For a Republican lawmaker, however, giving lawmakers a view of life in the occupied territory is an “exceedingly dangerous” plan that must be stopped.

In letters he sent Thursday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Democratic House committee heads, Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas) laid out (pdf) his “extreme concern” with Tlaib’s proposal, first reported by The Intercept in December.

Unlike the rite of passage for new Republican and Democratic congress members that some dub the “Jewish Disneyland trip”—sponsored by American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF)—the proposed congressional delegation by the first Palestinian-American woman to serve in Congress would focus on  “Israel’s detention of Palestinian children, education, access to clean water, and poverty,” the news outlet reported at the time.

Her delegation could spotlight Israel’s “segregation” and show “how that has really harmed us being able to achieve real peace in that region,” Tlaib told The Intercept.

“I don’t think AIPAC provides a real, fair lens into this issue,” she addded, as it glosses over “the side that I know is real, which is what’s happening to my grandmother and what’s happening to my family there.”