BREAKING: Tearful Tlaib says grandmother advised her against Israel trip

Date created : 20/08/2019 - 02:43  GMT/ZULU

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by Rachel Rubin and Biodun Iginla, France24

A tearful US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib said on Monday that her Palestinian grandmother told her last week not to visit Israel under conditions demanded by the Israeli government.

Tlaib said she had considered accepting Israeli demands to not engage in politics so that she could travel to the West Bank and visit her grandmother, who is around 90 years old.

"She said I'm her dream manifested, I'm her free bird, so why would I come back and be caged and bow down, when my election rose her head up high, gave her dignity for the first time?" Tlaib told reporters.

"And so through tears, at 3:00 in the morning, we all decided as a family that I could not go until I was a free United States congresswoman."

Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, the first two Muslim women ever elected to the US Congress, had planned a trip last week to the Jewish state and Palestinian territories, where they expected to meet with activists and officials on both sides.

But on Thursday Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government bowed to urging from President Donald Trump and barred them, accusing them of supporting a boycott against Israel.

Shortly after that, the Israelis partially reversed course and offered Tlaib alone permission to visit her grandmother if she accepted restrictions and promised not to promote the boycott.

- 'Exposing the truth' -

Speaking together in Omar's hometown of St. Paul, Minnesota in their first public appearance since the trip's cancellation, Tlaib and Omar accused Israel of bowing to Trump and trying to hide the reality of the Palestinian situation.

Tlaib pointed out that it is common for US lawmakers to visit Israel and meet a wide range of activists.

"What is not common occurrence is members of Congress being barred from entering a country on these fact-finding missions unless they agree to strict set of rules," she said.

"It is unfortunate that Prime Minister Netanyahu is apparently taking a page out of Trump's book, and even direction from Trump, to deny this opportunity," she said.

Omar called the decision to ban the two of them "nothing less than an attempt by an ally of the United States to suppress our ability to do our jobs as elected officials."

Referring to the $3 billion in aid the US gives to Israel each year, Omar said, "this is predicated on their being an important ally in the region and the only democracy in the Middle East."

"But denying visit to duly elected members of Congress is not consistent with being an ally."

She blasted Trump for using the visit as a political cudgel against them and the Democrats.

"We know Donald Trump would love nothing more than to use this issue to pit Muslims and Jewish Americans against each other," Omar said.

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French minister: Muslim women who wear veils like ‘negroes’ supporting slavery

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© Kenzo Tribouillard, AFP | French minister for Family, Children and Women's Rights Laurence Rossignol arrives for a meeting at the Hotel Matignon in Paris, on February 18, 2016.

            

by Natalie de Vallieres and Biodun Iginla, France24, Paris

                                                                                                   

Latest update : 2016-03-31

France’s minister for women’s rights on Wednesday compared women who choose to wear conservative Islamic dress to the “American negroes” who once supported slavery, sparking anger and accusations of racism.

The remarks by Minister Laurence Rossignol, during an interview with French TV channel BFM, came as she railed against fashion retailers H&M, Marks and Spencer and Dolce & Gabbana for launching products designed specifically for Muslim women, such as hijabs and the “burkini” – a swimsuit with a built-in hood designed to cover everything except the hands, feet and face.
Such companies were “irresponsible” and guilty of “promoting the confinement of women’s bodies”, said Rossignol.
When the interviewer pointed out that many Muslim women freely choose to adhere to conservative Islamic dress codes, Rossignol responded: “Of course there are women who choose it. There were American negroes who were in favour of slavery.”
‘Error of language’
The comparison – and particularly the language used – sparked an immediate reaction online.
“Racism starts with Laurence Rossignol and ends with insults, violence and blood,’” said one Twitter user, @oboerythme.
“@laurossignol must have missed the government’s anti-racism classes,” said @widadk.
An online Change.org petition was also launched calling for Rossignol to face “sanctions” for her comments.
“It is with anger and exasperation that we have been once again confronted with the verbal violence of a political leader,” wrote the organisers. “Invited to partake in a false debate on ‘Islamic fashion’, [Rossignol] made scandalous propositions, fuelling the conflation and stigmatisation of both Muslim women and the millions of slaves transported [from Africa].”
By midnight the petition had more than 14,600 signatures.
Speaking to AFP later on Wednesday, Rossignol said she had made an “error of language” by using the word “negro” while stressing she would never use the word “except when talking about slavery and the slave trade”.
“But I didn’t take into account the most widespread perception [of the word] – that one doesn’t say ‘negro’ even if it is allowed in respect to slavery,” she said.
"Outside of this error of language, I am not retracting a single word I said" about Islamic dress, the minister added.
In 2010, France controversially introduced a ban on wearing the full Islamic veil, or niqab, in public. Proponents of the ban argued that wearing a veil violated the country’s values of gender equality and secularism, though critics decried it as an infringement of individual liberty