Rashida Tlaib Accuses Israel of ‘Genocide’ at Hospital After US Concludes PIJ Misfire was Responsible

Rashida Tlaib has had no doubts. The explosion at the hospital parking lot in Gaza was, and remains, in her view, the deliberate work of the malevolent Zionists. She has paid no attention to Israel’s detailed presentation of the evidence, both audio and visual, that confirmed that it was not an Israeli airstrike, but an errant rocket, launched by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, that caused the explosion. Furthermore, she apparently rejects her own government’s finding that Israel was not responsible for the explosion at the hospital. More on Tlaib’s hysterical charges can be found here: “Rep. Rashida Tlaib accuses Israel of ‘genocide’ after US clears it of Gaza hospital blast,” by Josh Christenson, New York Post, October 18, 2023:

Far-left Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) burst into tears Wednesday while accusing Israel of committing “genocide” following Tuesday’s explosion at a Gaza hospital — long after President Biden and other US officials stated that evidence showed Palestinian terror groups were responsible.

Tlaib, who has stood by social media posts accusing the Israeli military of “bombing” doctors, patients and children, said during a pro-Palestinian protest on Capitol Hill that “what’s so hard is watching those videos and the people telling the kids, ‘Don’t cry.’”

“They can cry, I can cry, we all can cry — if we’re not crying something is wrong,” Tlaib said, her voice breaking, in a video posted to X. “I’m telling you right now, President Biden, not all of America is with you on this one.”

There is no record of Rashida Tlaib, so lachrymose when she discusses Palestinians who have died in the war Hamas started, dropping even a single tear over the 1,400 Israelis who were tortured, raped, murdered, and mutilated, on October 7.

When she says, addressing Biden for his pro-Israel stance, that “not all of America is with you on this one,” she is referring above all to the leftist malevolent no-nothings and antisemites on campuses which are suffused in a miasma of animus toward the “apartheid colonial-settler state” of tiny Israel, an atmosphere that is directed and encouraged by the growing number of Muslims in American colleges and universities.

“We are literally watching people commit genocide and killing a vast majority just like this, and we still stand by and say nothing,” she shouted. “We will remember this. But all of you, you need to know, I swear to God, you are on the right side of history. You are doing everything possible to save lives.”

Dozens of protesters from the IfNotNowMovement and Jewish Voices for Peace who listened to Tlaib were later arrested by US Capitol Police after entering the Cannon House Office Building to demonstrate.

“Squad” Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar have left up social media posts blaming Israel for a hospital explosion that killed hundreds at a Gaza hospital.

“Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that,” Tlaib had posted on X at roughly 2 p.m. Tuesday, before blaming the president for not helping “to facilitate a ceasefire.”

“Your war and destruction only approach has opened my eyes and many Palestinian Americans and Muslims Americans like me,” she added. “We will remember where you stood.”

Tlaib blames President Biden for not calling for a “ceasefire.” But a “ceasefire” would be tantamount to a victory for Hamas, which would still be left standing, in effect saved by the bell, when Israelis are united in the view that Hamas has to be destroyed. And it is not “your [Biden’s] war,” as Tlaib says, but the war that Hamas began when it tortured, raped, mutilated, and murdered 1,400 Israelis and wounded another 2,600 on October 7.

An hour later, fellow “Squad” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) also held Biden responsible for not pushing “an immediate ceasefire to end this slaughter.”

“Bombing a hospital is among the gravest of war crimes,” she [Omar] said on X. “The IDF reportedly blowing up one of the few places the injured and wounded can seek medical treatment and shelter during a war is horrific.”

Both posts were still up as of 4 p.m. Wednesday.

But then later on Wednesday, Ilhan Omar put up another post, walking back her original post, reporting on the conclusions reached by the American investigators of the incident. Here is what she posted as a correction: “Our office cited an AP report yesterday that the IDF had hit a Baptist hospital in Gaza. Since then, the IDF denied responsibility and the US intelligence assessment is that this was not done by Israel. It is a reminder that information is often unreliable and disputed in the fog of war (especially on Twitter where misinformation is rampant). We all have a responsibility to ensure information we are sharing is from credible sources and to acknowledge as new reports come in.” She added that “it is critical that we have a fully independent investigation to determine conclusively who is responsible for this war crime.” That sounds as if she is still not completely satisfied with the investigation conducted by the Americans, for she is calling for another “fully independent” one — as if the one just completed was somehow not “independent,” but, Omar implies, subject to Israeli pressure. And Omar did not apologize for her rush to judgment and unwarranted condemnation of Israel. Still, she performed better than Rashida Tlaib, who has continued to blame Israel for the attack, and what is still worse, has denounced Israel for “genocide.”

“Genocide”? What “genocide”? Where are the death camps, the crematoria, the cattle cars, the shots in the back of the neck after which the victims, some still alive, topple into open pits? Where are the mass killings by Israel of Palestinians, when the Palestinian population of Gaza and the West Bank has increased fivefold since 1948? And if the Israelis are committing “genocide,” why do they persist in warning Palestinian civilians away from buildings the IAF is about to target, through messaging, telephoning, leafletting, and the use of the “knock-on-the-roof” technique? If Israel is guilty of “genocide,” why has it warned people in northern Gaza to move south to safer quarters, in order to save their lives? Why do Israeli doctors and nurses treat Palestinians, especially children — and often for free — in Israeli hospitals? Why does Israel provide work permits to 125,000 Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, in order that they may work in Israel and the territories, and earn three to ten times what they can earn at home?

Tlaib apparently thinks she can get away with ignoring the findings of the American security establishment by continuing to hold to her belief that the IDF was responsible for the strike at the hospital. But her closest colleague on the Squad, Ilhan Omar, appears to have accepted, albeit reluctantly, the findings of the American government. And another member of the Squad, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has not only accepted the American conclusion that Israel was not responsible for the hospital explosion, but also denounced a pro-Palestine rally in New York held over the weekend following the hospital explosion, stating: “The bigotry and callousness expressed in Times Square on Sunday were unacceptable and harmful in this devastating moment. It also did not speak for the thousands of New Yorkers who are capable of rejecting both Hamas’ horrifying attacks against innocent civilians as well as the grave injustices and violence Palestinians face under occupation,” she said. That certainly distinguishes her from Rashida Tlaib, who has said not a word about Hamas’ “horrifying attack.”

Tlaib represents the 12th Congressional District in Michigan. It is overwhelmingly Democratic. In 2022, she won 76% of the vote. We are likely to see more of her.