Palestine Is *The* Issue Of Gravest Concern For Michigan

By Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)

Dearborn, March 9 – Here in the Twelfth Congressional District, we have our work cut out for us. This once-prospering, working-class area of Detroit used to boast manufacturing jobs that put the American dream within reach; now, decades after the irreversible decline of the American automotive industry in the state, this district and its neighbors face myriad crucial challenges: chronic underemployment; inner-city neglect; education in crisis; and towering above all, the brutal Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Few other Congressional representatives appreciate this. I can name perhaps a handful of them who understand the key place that Palestine occupies, so to speak, in the hierarchy of important issues facing Americans struggling to make ends meet and negotiating frightening new social and political developments in culture and society. Too many of my colleagues see their constituents’ immediate economic needs and civil liberties as a higher priority than Palestine. Here in the Twelfth District, however, we have our priorities straight.

This does not mean that other issues get neglected. Far from it! It does mean that other issues matter only insofar as they can serve or advance the Palestine issue. Are your children failing academically because of COVID-related school closures? By itself, that fails to register on the scale of Important Things, because Palestine. But frame it as an appreciation for the plight of Palestinian children facing Israeli restrictions, and boom! – again, so to speak – you’ve got yourself a salient Palestine-congruent issue we can work with.

You don’t even have to look for a factual connection between your area of concern and Palestine. Flint’s drinking water, for example – while technically not this district, certainly an illustrative example of the recommended process – all you have to do do give that problem traction is the right Congressional circles (mine) is to tie it to Palestinian water issues, regardless of the fact that those problems have little to do, in a real-world sense, with any Israeli policies and everything to do with Palestinian Authority incompetence, corruption, and cynical exploitation of Palestinian suffering to depict Israel as evil. We can do that, too!

Anyone can oppose funding for the Iron Dome missile system with an argument that American taxpayer funds should be spent in America; that kind of doesn’t work with the obviously correct policy of providing funding for Palestinian government and cronyism. no, what you must do is argue that funding a defensive system somehow harms Palestinians who can no longer kill as many Israeli with indiscriminate rocket fire, and boom! – not so much a so to speak in this case – I’m all the way with you.

I speak for all residents of District Twelve who matter when I declare Free Palestine!

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