WASHINGTON: 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.

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.
- AFP