The World Jewish Congress condemned Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) on Sunday in response to the freshman lawmaker talking about a boycott of Bill Maher’s show on HBO after the left-wing comedian denounced the boycott Israel movement.
WJC President Ronald Lauder said in a statement it was “deeply disturbing” that the Democrat congresswoman “would demonstrate disregard for freedom of speech.”
“Serious questions need to be asked about Tlaib’s motivation in supporting the extremist BDS Movement, which is allied with terrorists and is not shy about its ultimate aim of destroying Israel,” Lauder said in the release.
On Friday’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” host Maher, who is Jewish on his mother’s side, said the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is “a bulls**t purity test by people who want to appear woke but actually slept through history class.”
“It’s predicated on this notion, I think — it’s very shallow thinking — that the Jews in Israel, mostly white, and the Palestinians are browner, so they must be innocent and correct, and the Jews must be wrong. As if the occupation came right out of the blue, that these completely peaceful people found themselves occupied,” Maher said.
This coming after Israel announced that it would bar Tlaib and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from visiting the country because of their support for the BDS movement. The Democrats were the first two Muslim women elected to Congress in 2018 and they both have a long history of anti-Semitic comments.
Tlaib took to Twitter after Maher’s show to suggest a boycott should be considered, as she compared his words to efforts to oppose apartheid in South Africa.
“Maybe folks should boycott his show,” she tweeted. “I am tired of folks discrediting a form of speech that is centered on equality and freedom. This is exactly how they tried to discredit & stop the boycott to stand up against the apartheid in S. Africa. It didn’t work then and it won’t now.”
Rashida Tlaib calls for boycott of Bill Maher as civil war erupts on the left https://t.co/0Ngm7NMbC8 pic.twitter.com/ltgHks9N5x
— Conservative News (@BIZPACReview) August 18, 2019
Lauder likened the effort by Tlaib and her fellow progressives to silence opponents to their beliefs to Nazi Germany.
“The WJC fully supports the constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech and has borne witness to the historic horrors associated with boycotts and the suppression of free speech,” he said. “Adolf Hitler infamously boycotted Jewish-owned businesses and worked to ban those in the entertainment and media industries who were critical of the Nazi party. After annexing Austria in 1938, Hitler quickly targeted for censure the Kabarett satirical reviews renowned for their expression of independent thought. We Jews know what boycotts can lead to. We find it concerning that a member of the U.S. Congress would lobby for BDS and so easily suggest that Maher’s show should be boycotted simply because he expressed an opinion with which she disagrees.”
Welcome to post-Obama America.
Tlaib was exposed for her showmanship last week after she actually obtained permission to visit her elderly grandmother after appealing to the Israeli government and saying that it may be the last time she gets to see her.
Once granted permission, the radical left Democrat rejected the offer.
Tlaib slammed for shameless ‘political stunt’ when she abruptly backs out of Israel trip https://t.co/Oq0f7pfREt pic.twitter.com/t3UA9BoXab
— Conservative News (@BIZPACReview) August 16, 2019
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