Hallandale Beach braces for protests at meeting
HALLANDALE BEACH — She sparked a political firestorm nationwide after accusing Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib of being a Hamas-loving anti-Semite who might “blow up Capitol Hill.”
Hallandale Beach Commissioner Anabelle Lima-Taub has been called unAmerican and worse by critics who have flooded City Hall to condemn what some are calling a bigoted Facebook post she made on Jan. 8, five days after Tlaib, a Muslim and PalestinianAmerican, was sworn into office.
Lima-Taub’s post went viral. And the story, first reported by the South Florida Sun Sentinel, went national.
Now Hallandale Beach com-
missioners are bracing for protests from both sides at their next meeting on Wednesday.
“We are stepping up security,” Police Chief Sonia Quinones said Sunday. “Our role is to keep the peace [and] to keep everyone safe.”
Commissioner Michele Lazarow, who like Lima-Taub is Jewish, is sponsoring a resolution seeking to reprimand her colleague at Wednesday’s meeting. Lazarow said she’s expecting a huge crowd, both for and against Lima-Taub.
“Commissioner Lima-Taub’s hateful remarks have provoked hateful people to come out of the shadows,” Lazarow said. “I expect many of them to descend on City Hall on Wednesday. I have complete confidence that our chief of police and her department will keep our city safe.”
Lima-Taub could not be reached for comment Sunday.
Her critics accuse her of inflaming already tense relations between
Israel and Palestine.
Her supporters defend her right to speak her mind.
Tlaib, D-Michigan, also came under fire after vowing on the same day she was sworn in to Congress to go after President Donald Trump and “impeach the mother------.”
Vice Mayor Sabrina Javellana and Commissioner Mike Butler say they plan to support the resolution to censure Lima-Taub.
In a Facebook post on Saturday, Lima-Taub said she would not be silenced by her commission colleagues.
As the controversy has raged, Mayor Joy Adams has remained silent. She could not be reached for comment Sunday.
At least three groups are planning to protest outside City Hall on Wednesday, city officials say.
On Friday, the pro-Israel AntiDefamation League joined several Muslim organizations in condemning Lima-Taub’s comments as Islamophobic and offensive.
“Public officials should be able to vigorously defend and oppose policy positions without resorting to bigotry and the vilification of an entire group,” the ADL told LimaTaub in a letter. “Sharing and disseminating negative stereotypes like this — implying that all Muslims are, or have the potential to be, terrorists — is deeply offensive and has no place in our society.”
In the meantime, dozens of calls and emails have come in to Hallandale from all over, including Chicago, New York, London, Michigan and California.
Longtime Hallandale resident Jerry Jensen sent an email to the city demanding Lima-Taub’s resignation.
“She has over-reached her authority, and is a total embarrassment to the city of Hallandale Beach,” he wrote. “She must go.”
Another resident, Cynthia Cabrera, lamented the bad press.
“Only several months into the new commission and we’re back in the national news in a far more negative light than ever before,” she wrote. “Every decision and opinion rendered by Commissioner Taub will now be filtered through a lens colored by her racism and intolerance.”
But some have been quick to support Lima-Taub, blaming the brouhaha on what they called a liberal media and a “politically correct” culture.
Rob Alexander, of Colorado, said the commissioner deserves high praise for her boldness.
“It is interesting that suddenly everybody is very sensitive to ‘xenophobic, Islamophobic’ and other phobic verbal attacks and abusive … expressions that are clearly anti-Christian, anti-Semitic or anti-Trump which may be publicized with impunity,” he wrote. “I submit that Ms. LimaTaub should have the same 1st Amendment rights that anyone else enjoys without fear of censure or retaliation.”
Javellana, a college student elected to the commission in November, longs for peace on the commission after just two months on the dais. The latest drama will soon be a distant memory for Hallandale, she hopes.
“One person does not define this city,” Javellana said. “Nothing will make up for this. It will always be online. It happened. But we can engage in sensitivity and not repeat this again.”