“What Constitution?” Rashida Tlaib Blasts Michigan AG’s Criminal Charges Against Pro-Palestine Students
The only Palestinian member of Congress also remained mum on whether she’d endorse Kamala Harris during a Black-Palestine solidarity event in DC.
Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib on Thursday called out her state’s Democratic attorney general, and vowed to help “fight” the criminal charges against 11 pro-Palestine protestors at the University of Michigan.
“We have a Michigan Attorney General going beyond what the county prosecutor has done in evaluating, investigating, but also deciding, you know, at this moment, to reduce resources,” said Tlaib, the only Palestinian member of Congress, at a Black-Palestinian solidarity panel in Washington DC, moderated by Zeteo’s Mehdi Hasan.
“Instead of getting justice, not one criminal charge in the Flint Water Crisis, you're going to spend time in trying to use the power of your office to silence people's First Amendment right,” she said, adding: “Literally, we have protests and marches for Black Lives Matter, for immigrant rights, for climate, for reproductive health, nothing. But when it's for Palestine, all of a sudden we have people saying, what Constitution?”
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has attracted criticism for ending a failed years-long effort to pursue prosecutions over the Flint, Michigan, water crisis.
Tlaib, meanwhile, came to the defense of students who had pitched tents in protest of their institutions' investments in Israel’s violence on Palestine — a movement that swept the nation last spring.
“Not only am I coming from the most beautiful, Blackest city in the country, but also from a state that values the United States Constitution and the Michigan Constitution, and we're going to fight this, and we're going to protect these students who wanted to speak truth to power and wanted to save lives, no matter faith or ethnicity,” Tlaib told a packed hall at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Annual Legislative Conference. “If you look at that beautiful encampment, the number of people there — we all visited, it was incredible to watch them sit — not only in peace, but also just sitting there in presence of understanding and looking at the Armenian Genocide, looking at the Black struggle, even currently in our country, connecting it to what was going on in Gaza.”
The electoral impact of the US-funded devastation in Gaza was on the minds of many in the crowd, including a city council member from Detroit, who mentioned the struggle between being recruited to support Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign and honoring her constituents, who are vehemently opposed to her candidacy.
Hasan asked Tlaib how she herself was thinking about November—and the Democratic nominee for president.
“This question comes up a lot, but it's like, why is it on us and not on the party?” she responded. “I mean, look, this is real: a majority of Americans want us to end the support of the genocide,” prompting applause from the room.