Instead, the House of Representatives Speaker will host a bipartisan discussion on Israel-U.S. ties.
By World Israel News Staff
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) canceled a Palestinian “Nakba Day” event headlined by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) at the U.S. Capitol and replaced it with an event marking 75 years of Israel-U.S. ties.
The original event, which was slated to be held at a 400-person auditorium at the Capitol Building, would commemorate the Nakba — Arabic for “catastrophe” — which condemns the founding of the Jewish state.
“This event in the US Capitol is canceled. Instead, I will host a bipartisan discussion to honor the 75th anniversary of the US-Israel relationship,” McCarthy tweeted on Tuesday.
Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said he was “grateful Speaker McCarthy took rapid action. There’s room to talk about the issues – but not at an event co-sponsored by people who traffic in antisemitism and hate.”
The event, titled “Nakba 75 & The Palestinian People,” was organized in collaboration with several organizations that support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, including Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP, as well as NGOs that have expressed support for terrorism.
The ADL has condemned JVP as a “radical anti-Israel activist group” that honors terrorists.
Tlaib, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, routinely refers to Israel as an apartheid state and has made statements that perpetuate the antisemitic stereotype of Jews controlling the world.
Last week, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan said Tlaib’s “ignorance and hate toward Jews and Israel know no bounds” after she posted a tweet about the Nakba, calling Israel an “apartheid state” that “was born out of violence and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians”.
“Tlaib’s ignorance and hate toward Jews and Israel know no bounds. The facts are clear: the Arabs rejected the U.N.’s resolution to establish a Jewish state and started a war to annihilate it,” wrote Erdan, referencing the fact that in 1948, five Arab armies attacked the nascent state, with full support from the Palestinian leadership.
“Palestinian leadership is leading its people to catastrophe by inciting hate/terror and rejecting peace,” Erdan wrote.