The radical Michigan congresswoman repeated the false claim that Israel “ethnically cleansed” the Palestinians when in reality their population is larger than it’s ever been.
By Yakir Benzion, United With Israel
Representative Rashida Tlaib is in hot water again for her anti-Israel propaganda, this time being slammed for repeating the false claim that Israel is guilty of “ethnic cleansing.”
“Today, Palestinians around the world commemorate the Nakba, Arabic for “catastrophe” recognizing the ethnic cleansing of indigenous Palestine,” Tlaib tweeted on Friday, drawing harsh response given that the Palestinian population has soared since the establishment of the modern Jewish State in 1948.
“This is false, and she knows it,” said Rabbi Aryeh Spero, who heads the Conference of Jewish Affairs. “Since the establishment of the State of Israel 70 years ago, the Arab population in the Land of Israel has multiplied six-fold.”
“The fact is that the ethnic cleansing that happened after the establishment of the State of Israel was done to the Jews living in the Arab lands in North Africa and in the Middle East,” Spero said. “Muslim countries expelled and threatened their Jewish population. The 850,000 Jews who for over 1,000 years had lived in and contributed to these countries were expelled and ethnically cleansed.”
The shocking reality is that Spero’s claims are backed up by the Palestinians themselves. The Palestine Central Bureau of Statistics reports that in 2020 it counts 5.1 million Arabs living in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. This is almost double what the Palestinians reported in 1997.
After the 1967 Six Day War, there were roughly 600,000 Arabs in Judea and Samaria and 300,000 in the Gaza Strip. That means since 1967 and under so-called Israeli “occupation,” the Palestinian population is indeed almost six times what it was in 1967.
By definition, “ethnic cleansing” is when one population is killed or removed by another group. It is impossible that there was “ethnic cleansing” if there are now more Palestinians living in Israel, Judea, Samaria and Gaza than ever before in history.
“The ethnic cleansing going on today in the Middle East and northern Africa is being done mostly by Arab Muslim leaders and jihadists who are systematically purging these areas of age-old Christian communities, indigenous tribes, and remnants of the few Jews remaining in these areas,” Spero said. “When speaking of ethnic cleansing, Rashida Tlaib should look in the mirror and see that it is her ideology that is the greatest perpetrator of ethnic cleansing in the world today.”