Rachida Tlaib explains why she backed off from visiting her grandmother in the West Bank

Rachida Tlaib explains why she backed off from visiting her grandmother in the West Bank

• 2019-08-20 19:10:02
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US-Palestinian lawmaker Rachida Tlaib on Monday explained with tears in her eyes why she stopped visiting her grandmother in the occupied West Bank, accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of obeying President Donald Trump in restricting her movements.

The Israeli occupation authorities announced on Friday that it allowed Taleb to visit her elderly grandmother in the West Bank for "humanitarian" reasons after the Democratic MP pledged in writing to "respect the conditions of the visit." However, Taleb soon announced that she would abandon the visit because of the "unfair" conditions imposed by Israel.

Talib, 43, told a news conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Monday that she changed her mind after talking to her family, including her grandmother, who lives in the village of Beit Awar al-Fawqa near Ramallah.

The Detroit-born lawmaker told parents from the West Bank that her grandmother "told me that I was her dream come true, that I was her free bird." "Why should I come back and put myself in a cage and submit, when I re-elected her ... for her first dignity?"

"From here, we all decided, as a family, at three in the morning, in tears, that I could not go as long as I would not be a free American deputy."

Talib and her colleague Ilhan Omar, a Somali-born lawmaker, planned to visit the occupied West Bank at the end of last week, but Trump, who is staunchly hostile, has publicly called on the Jewish state to ban them.

"If Israel allows MPs Omar and Taleb to visit, it will show great weakness," he wrote on Twitter. "They hate Israel and all Jews. There is nothing to say or do to change their minds."

Shortly after Trump's position, the Jewish state announced that it would block the visit of the two deputies because they support efforts to boycott Israel for its occupation of Palestinian land and its policy towards them, before Israeli Interior Minister Arieh Deri returns and declares that he decided to allow Tlaib alone to visit her grandmother for "humanitarian" reasons.

At the press conference, Taleb expressed "regret that Netanyahu apparently was inspired by Trump (his decision) and even followed Trump's instructions" to ban the visit.

Ilhan Omar, who organized the press conference, condemned the ban and Talib from visiting Israel, calling the ban "an attempt by an ally of the United States to deprive us of our ability to act as deputies."