Yesterday, Representative Rashida Tlaib was smeared as an anti-Semite by Donald Trump and company. The accusation is false, but that's not news. Republicans have been using the anti-Semitism charge cynically for some time.
What is new, bitterly ironic, and quite sad, is that not only did Tlaib say nothing at all anti-Semitic, but what she did say was remarkably philo-Semitic. She made a morally courageous attempt to reach out to American Jews, a statement of almost heartbreaking moral generosity—and for that, she is being called "anti-Semitic."
Tlaib, the first Palestinian-American woman in Congress, was interviewed for a podcast released Friday. In it, she spoke about the Holocaust. Here's what she said:
"There's always kind of a calming feeling I tell folks when I think of the Holocaust, and the tragedy of the Holocaust, and the fact that it was my ancestors, Palestinians, who lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, their human dignity, their existence in many ways, have been wiped out, and some people's passports… I mean, just all of it was in the name of trying to create a safe haven for Jews."
