Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Palestinians bask in Mich. candidate’s election win
serve the interests of her nation. She is deeply rooted here.”
Rashida Tlaib, a former state lawmaker, defeated five other candidates to win the Democratic nomination in her Michigan district in Tuesday’s primary.
She will run unopposed, setting her up to take the spot held since 1965 by John Conyers, who stepped down in December citing health reasons amid charges of sexual harassment.
While celebrating her win, Tlaib was embraced Wednesday by her mother, Fatima, who briefly wrapped a Palestinian flag around Tlaib’s shoulders. “My mom is really, genuinely excited,” Tlaib said of her victory.
The eldest of 14 children born to Palestinian immigrants in Detroit, the 42-yearold Tlaib advocates progressive positions associated with the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party, such as universal health care, a higher minimum wage, environmental protection and affordable university tuition.
As a state lawmaker, she sought to defend Detroit’s poor, taking on refineries and a billionaire trucking magnate who she accused of polluting city neighborhoods. On the campaign trail, she criticized the influence of “big money” on politics and took aim at President Donald Trump, whom she heckled in 2016 while he was delivering a speech in Detroit.
While noting her Palestinian heritage, her website makes no mention of her views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In a 2016 op-ed explaining why she disrupted then-presidential candidate Trump, she described herself as an “American, parent, Muslim, Arab-American, and woman.”
Tlaib said her grandfather emigrated from Palestine to Brazil during the Great Depression and eventually moved to Detroit to find better opportunities.
Her father grew up in east Jerusalem, she said.
“When he was 19, he joined his father here. At 27, my grandmother grabbed him by the ear and took him to Palestine and said, ‘You are going to marry a good Arab woman.’ ”
While Tlaib would be the first Muslim woman to occupy a seat in Congress, she would not be the first Palestinian-American. A lawmaker from western Michigan, U.S. Rep. Justin Amash, a Republican, is the son of a Palestinian refugee father and Syrian immigrant mother. He is a Christian.
In the West Bank, family members were jubilant over the news of Tlaib’s election victory in Michigan.
Relatives served a sweet pastry, and grapes, figs and cactus fruits from their garden to visitors celebrating her win.
Tlaib’s uncle and aunt were speaking on an iPad with her mother, Fatima, back in Michigan.
“Thank God. Thank God,” her mother said. “This is for the Arabs and Muslims all over the world.”
She said her daughter detests Trump and that “God willing” she will defeat him and become the next U.S. president. “She stood up to him during his campaign. God willing, she will do it again and win.” The family’s story is typical of many Palestinians, with relatives scattered across the West Bank, Jordan and the United States.
Mohammed Tlaib said some 50 people from the small village have immigrated to the U.S. and now have children in schools and universities in America.
“They are Americans, like other Americans, and have deep roots here. So we expect them to serve their occupied and embattled country there,” he said.
Trump is loathed by the Palestinians after his decision in December to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
The Palestinians, who seek the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip for an independent state, see Trump as unfairly biased toward Israel.
The Tlaib family home in the West Bank is near Road 443, an Israeli highway cutting through the territory that is largely off limits to Palestinian motorists.
Her aunt, Fadwa Tlaib, visiting the West Bank from Jordan, described her niece as an advocate for the weak.
“She hates to see anyone take the rights of others. She supports human rights, women’s rights. She empowered girls in the family,” she said.