17 May 2022; MEMO: US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has introduced a resolution for Congress to recognise the Palestinian Nakba, a day after Palestinians marked the Catastrophe's 74th anniversary. Tlaib was the first Palestinian-American woman to be elected to Congress. The resolution was co-sponsored by Tlaib's fellow Congresswomen Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Betty McCollum and Marie Newman.
"Today, I introduced a resolution recognising the Nakba (Catastrophe), where 400 Palestinian towns and villages were destroyed, over 700,000 Palestinians uprooted from their homes, and made refugees," Tlaib wrote on Twitter yesterday. The Palestinian people have been living "under oppression and violent racism" ever since the Nakba, she added. "Nakba is well-documented and continues to play out today."
She insisted that, "We must acknowledge that the humanity of Palestinians is being denied when folks refuse to acknowledge the war crimes and human rights violations in apartheid Israel."
The US Campaign for Palestinian Rights celebrated the move. "For far too long, the Palestinian experience has been ignored by Washington, and Palestinians have been gaslit for trying to tell their story," said the group. "We must shift US foreign policy away from enabling Israel's ongoing displacement of Palestinians with military funding — and towards accountability."
