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Blood Libel: Tlaib Shares Tweet Falsely Accusing Jews of Murder Just Before Holocaust Remembrance Day

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Seemingly unable to help herself, radically left Rep. Rashida Tlaib landed in a bit of hot water over the weekend with an unfortunately characteristic misstep.

No stranger to controversy regarding anti-Semitic rhetoric, the Michigan Democrat was in less than rare form Saturday, according to The Times of Israel, retweeting shocking and unfounded claims that a missing Palestinian boy had just been murdered by a group of Israeli settlers.

Eight-year-old Qais Abu Ramila was found dead Saturday in a rainwater reservoir in East Jerusalem.

Local authorities reportedly have reason to believe the boy accidentally fell into an uncovered water well and drowned.

That did not, however, stop a handful of opportunistic Twitter users and Palestinian leaders from using the event to gin up anti-Israeli sentiment among the masses.

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And as one would expect, the uncorroborated claims of a few anonymous social media profiles and fringe regional leaders were excuse enough for Tlaib, a proud Palestinian-American herself, to dive headlong into the narrative.

Retweeting without comment a weekend expression of condolences from top Palestinian official and terror apologist Hanan Ashrawi — who wrote of the manufactured event, “The heart just shatters. The pain is unbearable. No words.” — the Michigan Democrat seemed to endorse claims Ramila had been “KIDNAPPED & EXECUTED” by a “Herd of violent” Israelis.

Eventually met with the facts of the matter, Tlaib would go on to scrub the tweet from her account in short order, according to The Times.

But the damage had been done — and a number of outlets were, rightly, quick to point out the freshman representative had in fact been party to the circulation of an age-old anti-Semitic conspiracy.

Known by scholars of history as “blood libel,” conspiracy theories alleging local Jews are secretly to blame for the disappearances of small children are unfortunately a disgusting trend dating back centuries, Ricochet editor Bethany Mandel wrote in the Washington Examiner.

“This virulently anti-Semitic tradition of blood libel made famous in the Middle Ages in Europe has continued in the modern Middle East,” Mandel wrote. “Often, when a child passes away in the Palestinian territories, those around the child will look for ways to blame Israel in some capacity. Dead children are used as props. Sadly, we’ve come to expect it.”

Until now, the peddling of blood libel was understood to be just as Mandel said — a sad propaganda tool employed by illegitimate Middle Eastern terror states or the fascist regimes of bygone eras.

Tlaib’s off-the-cuff decision to engage with the Ramila blood libel over the weekend, however, proves the intersectionalists of the modern cultural left are either so ignorant as to fall victim to such propaganda or, worse, so malicious as to forward it for their own political gain.

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And what’s worse is Tlaib’s decision to engage with the tactic also came on, of all days, the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day — a day people the world over are called on to bear witness to the unspeakable atrocities committed when falsehoods are used to justify the release of widespread public rage on a specific population.

Of course, all this still didn’t lead the freshman congresswoman to anything remotely resembling an apology.

That Tlaib left to the resident terror sympathizer, waiting to address the issue until Ashrawi first fessed up.

“My apologies for retweeting something that’s not fully verified,” the Palestinian official wrote in lackluster fashion Saturday morning on Twitter. “It seems that the news of [Ramila] being kidnapped is not certain.”

Only then would the Michigan Democrat follow up, retweeting Ashrawi once again, this time with a comment.

“In this era of inaccurate and manipulative news, I will also strive to hold myself to the highest standards for what I share,” Tlaib wrote. “Know that I always seek truth as we uplift the oppressed and fight for equality, justice, and freedom.”

Ironically, however, only one instance of news manipulation exists here — and it involves the left-wing establishment media’s blanket unwillingness to cover this controversy for even one second.

Do you think the American left has made room for anti-Semitism in recent years?

In their view, Tlaib’s self-described willingness to “uplift the oppressed and fight for equality, justice, and freedom” makes her an important voice for the marginalized, one worthy of celebration.

As left-wing orthodoxy now dictates, this also means Tlaib gets a free pass to fall short of the truth from time to time, even when further dividing the culture along ethnic and racial fault lines with baseless criminal allegations.

Such is the price the American left apparently is willing to pay in pursuit of what it calls “social justice.”

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Andrew J. Sciascia was the supervising editor of features at The Western Journal. Having joined up as a regular contributor of opinion in 2018, he went on to cover the Barrett confirmation and 2020 presidential election for the outlet, regularly co-hosting its video podcast, "WJ Live," as well.
Andrew J. Sciascia was the supervising editor of features at The Western Journal and regularly co-hosted the outlet's video podcast, "WJ Live."

Sciascia first joined up with The Western Journal as a regular contributor of opinion in 2018, before graduating with a degree in criminal justice and political science from the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where he served as editor-in-chief of the student newspaper and worked briefly as a political operative with the Massachusetts Republican Party.

He covered the Barrett confirmation and 2020 presidential election for The Western Journal. His work has also appeared in The Daily Caller.




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