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Who were Tlaib and Omar’s hosts going to be?

Benjamin Netanyahu, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar (Laura Adkins/JTA/Getty)

WASHINGTON — Explaining Israel’s decision not to allow Democratic congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib to visit Israel and Palestinian areas of the West Bank last weekend, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cited the lawmakers’ itinerary, which he said “reveals that the sole purpose of their visit is to harm Israel and increase incitement against it.”

What was on this itinerary? Omar outlined it in a series of tweets on Aug. 16.

Who organized the trip

Miftah, a Palestinian NGO chaired by Palestinian activist Hanan Ashrawi, organized the trip. Its website says its mission is to “promote the principles of democracy and good governance within various components of Palestinian society” and to “engage local and international public opinion and official circles on the Palestinian cause.”

The group, like many Palestinian civil society organizations, supports the movement to boycott Israel.

It has also praised Palestinian suicide bombers and published an age-old anti-Semitic stereotype, for which it later apologized.

A report on the group’s site from 2006 about Palestinian women in the second intifada praises Wafa Idris, who killed one Israeli civilian and injured 150 people in a 2002 suicide bombing in downtown Jerusalem.

The report says Idris, the first female suicide bomber of the second intifada, “marked the beginning of a string of Palestinian women dedicated to sacrificing their lives for the cause.”

Years later, in 2013, Miftah staffer Nawaf Al Zaru posted an article on its site criticizing President Barack Obama for hosting a Passover seder at the White House. In the article, Al Zaru that Jews kill non-Jewish children and use their blood in religious rituals.

“Does Obama in fact know the relationship, for example, between ‘Passover’ and ‘Christian blood’..?! Or ‘Passover’ and ‘Jewish blood rituals?!’” Al Zaru wrote.

“Much of the chatter and gossip about historical Jewish blood rituals in Europe are real and not fake as they claim; the Jews used the blood of Christians in the Jewish Passover.”

At first the group defended the article by saying the blogger who first criticized it had “wrongly accused MIFTAH and Dr. Ashrawi of promoting Jewish blood libel during Passover through its publication of an Arabic-language article that briefly addressed the subject.” But the group deleted the article from its site, apologized and said it disciplined Al Zaru.

In a statement, Miftah called the ban on Omar and Tlaib “an affront to the American people and their representatives. It is an assault on the Palestinian people’s right to reach out to decision-makers and other actors from around the world.”

The group said it wanted to facilitate Omar and Tlaib’s “direct contact with the Palestinian people, who are subject to Israel’s cruel regime of colonization, oppression and land grab.”

Ashrawi has not returned a JTA request for comment.

Where they would have gone

In broad strokes, the itinerary — titled “Delegation to Palestine” — took Tlaib and Omar through major Palestinian population centers in Jerusalem and the West Bank, and to a string of meetings with Palestinian and left-wing Israeli nonprofits and activists, as well as international human rights groups.

“Let’s be clear: the goal of our trip was to witness firsthand what is happening on the ground in Palestine and hear from stakeholders —  our job as Members of Congress,” she tweeted.

Omar wrote that the delegation was going to meet with Israeli lawmakers — including Jewish ones. She did not specify which members of Knesset, Israel’s parliament, they planned to meet. The lawmakers were also scheduled to meet a Palestinian official, Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the executive committee of the PLO.

An Israeli nonprofit, the left-wing Btselem, was to be present at one of their meetings, along with three other non-Israeli organizations.

The congresswomen were also to receive a tour of Hebron from Breaking the Silence, a left-wing Israeli group that opposes Israeli residence in the  West Bank.

“I would’ve loved to take @IlhanMN and @RashidaTlaib on our tour of Hebron,” tweeted Avner Gvaryahu, who would have given the tour. “There’s no joy in seeing or showing the harsh reality of the territories, but change will only come when we face up to the truth.”

The would be trip contrasts with a Democratic congressional delegation to Israel and the Palestinian territories taken earlier this month by 41 Congresspeople and sponsored by an organization affiliated with AIPAC.

That delegation met with both Israeli and Palestinian officials and activists. PA President Mahmoud Abbas, however, refused to meet with a parallel Republican delegation.

Omar and Tlaib’s trip was planning to meet with staff at the US Embassy in Israel. In addition, they were going to meet with UNRWA, the UN agency that aids Palestinian refugees, and had also planned meetings in eastern Jerusalem.

Omar and Tlaib planned to visit Jerusalem’s holy sites, including the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Al-Aqsa mosque, which is located at the Temple Mount, a Jewish holy site also revered by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.

The remainder of the trip took them to meetings and tours in the West Bank cities of Hebron, Bethlehem and Ramallah, including at a refugee camp.

This was not the first congressional delegation to Palestinian areas sponsored by Miftah. Politico first reported last week that Miftah co-sponsored a trip by five Democratic congressmen to Israel and the West Bank in 2016 that was allowed into Israel without a problem. The participants were Matt Cartwright, Dan Kildee, Hank Johnson, Luis Gutierrez and Mark Pocan.

The itinerary of that trip was similar to Omar and Tlaib’s planned visit. The representatives met with Arab-Israeli lawmakers. Other than that, the trip was centered on visiting Palestinian areas and Arab cities in Israel, and on meeting with Palestinian activists and groups.

But while both Omar and Tlaib support boycotting Israel, all of the congressmen had been to Israel previously or otherwise had spoken out in support of Israel, though they have also criticized its policies, at times harshly. All five were endorsed by JStreetPAC.

JStreetPAC did not endorse Tlaib or Omar.




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