Rep. Rashida Tlaib gave a teary-eyed statement about her experiences at Israeli checkpoints. It’s unclear of the time frame. First she said it was when she was a young child and visiting her grandmother, and then she mentioned her American mother going through a checkpoint, and her “then husband” being searched after a bus was stopped.
REP. RASHIDA TLAIB: As a young girl, visiting Palestine to see my grandparents and extended family, I watched as my mother had to go through dehumanizing checkpoints — even though she was a United States citizen and proud American. I was there when there when my [grandmoher] was in a terrible car accident and my cousins and I cried so she could have access to the best hospitals — which were in Jerusalem.I remember shaking with fear when checkpoints appeared in a small village [where we were] with tanks and guns everywhere. I remember visiting East Jerusalem with my then-husband and him escorted off the bus, although he was a United States citizen, just so security forces could harass him. All I can do as the granddaughter of a woman who lived in Occupied Territory is to elevate her voice by exposing the truth the only way I know how.As my Detroit public school teachers taught me, by humanizing the pain of oppression, our delegation trip included meetings with Israeli veterans who were forced to participate in military occupation. They also desperately want peace and self-determination for their Palestinian neighbors. They could have shed light into injustices of raids, shootings, demolitions, and child detention. The delegation would have seen firsthand why walls are destructive, not productive. They could have asked the people in Bethlehem how walls cut people off from economic opportunities, from a way to live, and do psychological damage that lasts forever.All I can do as her granddaughter is help humanize her and the Palestinian people’s plight. I know that when we can finally see them as deserving of human dignity, everyone there will be able to live in peace. [Transcript via RCP]
I don’t believe anything Tlaib says about Israel. She’s a hard-core anti-Israel zealot. She’s also a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which she hid during the campaign from constituents and donors such as left-wing J-Street.
But let’s pretend Tlaib is telling the truth about her experiences. Her teary-eyed account ignored why Israel constructed the security barrier (a wall in populated areas, a fence for most of its length) and checkpoints.
Israeli didn’t just wake up one day and say, “hey, let’s make life more difficult” for the non-Israeli Arab population. Rather, these security measures were the result of an unrelenting campaign of terror.
I covered this issue back in November 2009, Mr. Netanyahu, Tear Down That Wall For Our Suicide Bombers:
You just knew this had to rear its head on the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall. The anti-Israel left is demanding Mr. Netanyahu, Tear Down This Wall:
On the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Western leaders are full of self-congratulation. But their paeans to universal freedom ring hollow, when they bear large responsibility for another wall constricting human freedom: the apartheid wall dividing the Palestinian West Bank.
History is such an inconvenient truth. The way the coalition of Islamists and leftists tell it, one would think Israel just woke up one day on the wrong side of the bed and decided, “let’s build a wall.” Or that the wall (actually a combination of fences, walls, and other barriers) has been in place for decades.
In fact, the barrier built by Israel was a direct reaction to Palestinian suicide bombings commenced as part of the Second Intifada in 2000, which took almost a thousand Israeli lives. Suicide bombers slipped past the unprotected border to blow themselves up in Pizza restaurants, buses, supermarkets, hotels, and anywhere else they could find civilians.
The barrier was built to keep suicide bombers out, and it worked, much to the chagrin of the Palestinians. In 2002 452 Israelis were killed; that number dropped by half in 2003, and now almost no suicide bombers get through, although they still try. Ironically, the barrier also saved Palestinian lives by lessening the need for Israeli military actions in the West Bank to prevent suicide bombers.
We have covered many of the most infamous bombings. Here are some of them:
The terror and attempts at terror have continued unabated since the Second Intifada, just scroll through our Palestinian Terror tag, including these posts from 2015-2016:
The Israeli civilian death toll from terror is a tiny fraction of what it was during the Second Intifada, but not for lack of trying. The security barrier combined with checkpoints (which have been drastically reduced in number within the West Bank), combined with intelligence and military operations, work.
There are no easy choices in the Middle East. But when faced with the choice of genocidal intentions by Palestinian terrorists, Israeli chooses to defend itself.
That’s the real problem Tlaib and her supporters have, including leftist Jews who demand Israeli put itself in a militarily indefensible position. As I wrote in 2015 during the middle of the so-called Knife/Stabbing Intifada, How many Israelis must die for “as a Jew” progressives to feel good about themselves?
I don’t want to hear about the inconvenience of checkpoints brought on by Palestinian suicide bombings and other terror attacks.
[For more on Kay Wilson’s story, see our post Palestinian TV honors terrorist who killed American, butchered British woman]
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