WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Anti-Defamation League wants Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., to explain a photo of her posing with a man who has likened Zionists to Nazis and who has praised terrorists.
“Days ago, @RashidaTlaib was photographed at an event with Abbas Hamideh, a man who has praised terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah and equated Zionists with Nazis,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said Thursday on Twitter. “We ask her to clarify his attendance and denounce his anti-Semitism.”
Hamideh, based in Cleveland, has for years been involved in anti-Israel activity, praising terrorist groups like the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, and repeatedly likening Zionists to Nazis.
On Jan. 12, he posted on Twitter a photo in which he is standing next to Tlaib, holding a painting of the congresswoman, a freshman who is a Palestinian American, wearing traditional Palestinian dress in front of the Capitol.
“I was honored to be at Congresswoman @RashidaTlaib swearing-in ceremony in #Detroit and private dinner afterward with the entire family, friends and activists across the country,” he said in the tweet.
A number of conservative outlets reported on the tweet, but the closest Tlaib has come to addressing it is in a dismissive tweet. “Right-wing media targeting me again rather than focusing on the President’s reckless government shutdown,” said Tlaib, who is one of two Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives who have endorsed the boycott Israel movement. “Yes, I am Muslim and Palestinian. Get over it.”
Hamideh was unrepentant Thursday on Twitter. “I know what I said that’s why I wrote them on here but thanks for making them go viral,” he said to the ADL and other critics of his tweets.
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