Rashida Tlaib says colleges punishing anti-Israel students protesting 'genocide'
U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Michigan, criticized American universities on Thursday for responding to anti-Israel protests on campuses across the country where protesters have engaged in antisemitic behavior.
"From UM to Vanderbilt to USC to Columbia, students across our country are being retaliated against for using their constitutional rights to protest genocide. It’s appalling," Tlaib wrote on X in response to a post by Isra Hirsi, the daughter of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.
Hirsi said she was suspended from New York City's Barnard College hours before being arrested and later released for protesting against Israel at Columbia University.
Tlaib, who has Palestinian roots, has frequently criticized Israel and its leaders over its war with Hamas following the terror group's deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israeli communities.
"Our country isn’t just complicit in this genocide — we’re actively participating in it," she wrote Thursday on X, while calling on the Biden administration to stop supplying the Jewish state with arms.
Despite Tlaib's concerns over campus responses to student protests, she has refused to call out the antisemitism seen at some gatherings in which Jewish students have been targeted.
Protests at multiple universities have seen anti-Israel supporters call for an "intifada," or uprising, and for the destruction of the Jewish state.
Tlaib's remarks about Palestinians amid the Israel-Hamas war have sometimes resulted in criticism from fellow Democrats.
In November, she referenced the popular "from the river to the sea" phrase, referring to the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, which encompasses Israel. Jewish groups say the phrase is antisemitic and a code for the eradication of Israel.
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"From the river to the sea is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate," she wrote. "My work and advocacy is always centered in justice and dignity for all people no matter faith or ethnicity."
Critics have said Tlaib's stance on Israel, her calls for a ceasefire and her silence of the targeting of Jewish students on college campuses are antisemitic.
She drew scorn from her congressional colleagues days after Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel for her statement on that matter. Tlaib said she grieved the loss of both Palestinian and Israeli lives, but then appeared to blame the Israeli government for the unprovoked attack.
Tlaib has long accused Israel of committing genocide and refused to apologize for saying Israel targeted a hospital in Gaza with an airstrike despite U.S. defense officials saying the rocket was fired by terrorists.
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"The failure to recognize the violent reality of living under siege, occupation, and apartheid makes no one safer," she said. "No person, no child anywhere should have to suffer or live in fear of violence. We cannot ignore the humanity in each other. As long as our country provides billions in unconditional funding to support the apartheid government, this heartbreaking cycle of violence will continue."
Tlaib's office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.