FINALLY: Israel-hating Congresswoman Fact Checked by Twitter for misinformation

Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan has a history of making false statements regarding Israel and the Jewish people

By Nosson Shulman: Licensed Tour Guide of VIP Israel Tours & Authentic Virtual Tours (click here to check out his free trailer videos)

Pro-Israel journalists, activists, politicians, and even the IDF have long been complaining about the major social media companies unfairly censoring their views. This is usually without explanation as to what rules were being violated and done in a selective manner (compared to anti-Israel activists). This has oftentimes led to their accounts being suspended. As an example, an IDF war hero (and close friend of mine) had his account suspended for referring to Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. When reaching out to ask what rules had been violated, he received no response. Other times, certain posts are blocked for arbitrary reasons, as in 2021 when Hamas sent hundreds of rockets into Israel, Twitter prevented the IDF’s official page from posting about sirens sounding in Beersheba. Many pro-Israel social media influencers have shown (offering compelling evidence) that their accounts tended to be shadow banned when their posts discussed Israel (unlike their posts unconnected to Israel, which did not receive the same treatment). In some cases, the bias has been so evident that outcries ensued and in many cases the affected accounts were restored (with the companies regularly blaming it on technical issues or on a rogue “fact checking” employee). These companies have been much slower to interfere with posts which clearly violated their terms of use when used against Israel (including some openly calling for the destruction of the Jewish State) and often allowing terrorist groups (like Hamas and Hezbollah) to maintain accounts and even recruit new members. Due to intense lobbying by Israel, several of the companies have begun to “crackdown” on some of their posts and suspend accounts, although sometimes only temporarily. Companies such as Facebook and Twitter employ “fact checkers” to search for “misleading” posts and label them as such, although it is clear that the bar of what is “misinformation” seems to be higher for the defenders of Israel than its critics. It is within this environment that a recent “fact check” against a prominent congresswoman on Twitter has become so newsworthy!

Commenting on a Twitter post made by Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) celebrating the special relationship between the US and Israel, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Mi) falsely called Israel an “Apartheid” state writing “Speaker McCarthy wants to rewrite history but the apartheid state of Israel was born out of violence and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, 75 years later, the Nakba (literally meaning “catastrophe”, a word commonly used by some Arabs to describe Israel’s creation) continues to this day”. Immediately, her false claims were fact checked by twitter, who corrected some of the points she made. Twitter pointed out that Israel was not an Apartheid state (a racist system previously used in South Africa, dictating that non-white South Africans were required to live in separate areas, could not join the (all-white) government, vote, or be educated in the same schools as white people. Within this system, black citizens were deprived of political and civil rights). On the contrary, the Israeli Arab population make up 21% of Israeli citizens, and have full equal rights enshrined in the law (and strictly enforced) including the right to vote, serve in the government, run for office (there are several Arab parties in the current Knesset, although many Arabs also belong to Jewish-majority parties including both on the left and right wing) and go to state-funded public schools. There is an Arabic public school system although Arabs have the legal right to send their kids to government-funded Jewish schools and many do so.

With regards to her false claims that “Israel was born out of…the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians”, Twitter pointed out that the war “affected both Jewish and Arab communities caught up in the war initiated by 5 Arab states who opposed the existence of Israel”. To bolster this fact, Twitter provided a link to the US State Departments official history of the Arab Israeli War. They also pointed out that the Arab population has continued to grow since the beginning of the state, with high birthrates, declining infant mortality and longer life expectancy (growth statistics usually not associated with anything related to genocide). Twitter also mentioned that Israel wasn’t born out of violence but by UN General Assembly Resolution 181 (a link to the UN’s official page was provided).

Officially, Twitter now has a new policy which states that there will be “no further exceptions” to fact checks for those who post “materially false statements on the platform”, regardless of which side they support. In fact, this was the seventh time that Tlaib had accused Israel of apartheid (although the first 6 times, under the old rules, she was NOT fact checked).

Rashida Tlaib has a history of making vile, antisemitic statements with minimum consequences. In 2019, she wrote “There’s always kind of a calming feeling I tell folks when I think of the Holocaust, and the tragedy of the Holocaust” which caused the Palestinians to “lose their land…their lives, their livelihood, their human dignity, (and) their existence in many ways”. She openly supports the BDS movement that calls for the boycott of the Jewish state. When four Senators in 2019 sponsored anti-BDS legislation, she accused pro-Israel advocates in congress of dual loyalty, a common canard used by antisemites throughout recent history to accuse Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations. This belief has caused much harm to Jews around the world over the last few centuries. On December 2020, in a since deleted tweet, she called for a Palestinian State from the (Jordan) River to the (Mediterranean) Sea, a common nationalist Palestinian slogan associated with calls for Israel’s elimination. There are many other examples of bigoted comments she has made publicly. Although many of her anti-Israel statements have been condemned by people on both the left and right (including some of her Democratic colleagues who called her words antisemitic) she has not been officially censured by her party. In spite of all this, she was still endorsed in the Democratic primaries for reelection by former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

Nosson Shulman is a journalist and Licensed Tour Guide in Israel specializing in Biblical tours. To allow tourists to experience Israel during the Corona era, he created the new hit Israel tour video series which brings Israel to the home of viewers by simulating actual tours. To check out his free sneak preview tour videos, click here. To view sample tour itineraries or to inquire about private tour opportunities with a personalized itinerary on your next trip to Israel, click here.

© 2023 All Rights Reserved – Unauthorized Duplication is prohibited