(DailyVantage.com) – Last week, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) accused a political cartoon of being racist. The cartoon, drawn by Henry Payne and published in National Review, showed Tlaib at her desk when her pager exploded. The punchline was Tlaib saying, “Odd, my pager just exploded.”
This cartoon referred to an operation where Israel sold pagers to Hezbollah and later detonated them, killing several terrorists. The cartoon’s message was meant to criticize Tlaib’s known support for anti-Israel groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.
Tlaib, however, took to social media to express her outrage. She posted on X (formerly Twitter), “Our community is already in so much pain. This racism will incite more hate and violence against our Arab and Muslim communities. It’s disgraceful that the media continues to normalize this racism.”
Her post received strong support from other far-left members of Congress, who echoed her views, calling the cartoon both “racist” and “Islamophobic.”
However, not everyone agreed with Tlaib’s take. Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a Research Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, argued that the cartoon was not racist. “This cartoon is against Tlaib for supporting Hezbollah and Hamas,” he said. Abdul-Hussain made it clear that Tlaib doesn’t speak for all Arabs or Muslims in America. “Many Arabs and Muslims strongly oppose her views,” he said. To him, claiming that all Arabs and Muslims are represented by Tlaib is a form of racism itself. “We’re diverse, like any other race or religion. No one person can represent us all.”
Tlaib has a long history of aligning with groups and individuals hostile to Israel. She has been photographed with a Hezbollah supporter and has openly called for the elimination of Israel. After Hamas’ brutal October 7 attack on Israel, which left 1,200 dead, she was censured by Congress for her comments. She refused to condemn Hamas for raping women or beheading babies. Instead, she continued to speak at events linked to radical Islamist groups.
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