{"id":1590899,"date":"2024-04-04T20:53:10","date_gmt":"2024-04-04T20:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/?p=465716"},"modified":"2024-04-04T20:53:10","modified_gmt":"2024-04-04T20:53:10","slug":"the-vicious-things-republicans-have-said-about-palestinians-since-october-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2024\/04\/04\/the-vicious-things-republicans-have-said-about-palestinians-since-october-7\/","title":{"rendered":"The Vicious Things Republicans Have Said About Palestinians Since October 7"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Michigan Republican Rep.<\/span> Tim Walberg recently declared<\/a> at a town hall that the U.S. \u201cshouldn\u2019t be spending a dime on humanitarian aid,\u201d in Gaza. Instead, he posed, \u201cit should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the shocking statement went viral, his office tried to <\/strong>soften the blow. It provided a full transcript of Walberg\u2019s comments to CNN, which reported<\/a> that Walberg had also said that a similar logic could be applied to Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine. \u201cDefeat Putin quick. Instead [of] 80% in Ukraine being used for humanitarian purposes, it should be 80-100% to wipe out Russia, if that\u2019s what we want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walberg then attempted to walk the comment back in a statement<\/a>, in which he said he was not suggesting that nukes be used to end either war. Yet there\u2019s no denying that he invoked horrifying instances of the U.S. dropping atomic bombs in reference to Gaza \u2014 just the latest vicious, warmongering statement by a Republican lawmaker since October 7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Walberg\u2019s comments received a fair amount of critical media coverage, the response from his congressional colleagues was muted \u2014 underscoring a stark double standard in the public treatment of those who advocate for Palestinian rights, and those who dehumanize them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Members of Congress like Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.; Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.; and Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., have long been pilloried \u2014 and even censured \u2014 by their colleagues for speaking out against Israel\u2019s brutal treatment of Palestinians, while the media class has spilled boats-worth of ink on bad-faith interpretations of the progressive Democrats\u2019 statements. Republicans who belittle, or even encourage, Palestinian suffering have typically generated no such equal, let alone proportional, response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries did not respond to questions about what\u00a0party leadership is doing in response to lawmakers’ callous comments about Palestinians, especially as the death toll in Gaza continues to rise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yousef Munayyer, a political analyst and senior fellow at the Arab Center Washington DC, noted that the cost of misspeaking \u2014 or having comments misconstrued \u2014 on Israel is unparalleled.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe social and political costs of stepping on the taboos of saying anything that could be even possibly misconstrued as antisemitic are so high,\u201d Munayyer told The Intercept. \u201cAnd yet the costs of saying things that are undeniably and horrifically dehumanizing toward Palestinians are so low. I don’t know of a double standard as extreme as that on any other issue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republicans\u2019 hunger for<\/span> violence began just days after Hamas\u2019s attack against Israel on October 7. \u201cWe are in a religious war here, I\u2019m with Israel,\u201d Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., declared<\/a> on October 11, in an appearance on Fox News. \u201cDo whatever the hell you have to do to defend yourself. Level the place.\u201d (Graham later said<\/a> that no amount of civilian casualties in Gaza would prompt him to scrutinize Israel\u2019s conduct.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., echoed Graham\u2019s bloodlust on Fox in mid-October. “As far as I’m concerned, Israel can bounce the rubble in Gaza,\u201d said the senator who famously called for the Trump administration to sic the military on protesters at the height of the George Floyd uprising. \u201cAnything that happens in Gaza is the responsibility of Hamas. Hamas killed women and children in Israel last weekend,\u201d he added. In the months to come, Israel would go on to kill over 25,000 Palestinian women and children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

In the House of Representatives, Republicans have taken glee in fantasizing about Palestinian suffering. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On October 11, Ohio Rep. Max Miller lambasted Tlaib for planting a Palestinian flag outside her congressional office. He refused to recognize Palestine as a state, calling<\/a> it \u201ca territory that’s about to probably get eviscerated and go away here shortly, as we’re going to turn that into a parking lot.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n \n \"\" \n

\n Related <\/h2>\n

GOP Representative Denies Existence of \u201cInnocent Palestinian Civilians\u201d and Tries to Hobble Aid to Gaza<\/h3>\n <\/span>\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n\n\n\n

A few days later, Miller\u2019s colleague Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., took the unusual step of donning the military garb of a foreign country in the halls of the Congress \u2014 wearing an Israel Defense Forces uniform he earned while volunteering for the country\u2019s military in 2015. Shortly thereafter, he introduced<\/a> an amendment that would slow down humanitarian aid to Gaza. \u201cAny assistance should be slowed down \u2014 any assistance,\u201d Mast said in a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the bill. \u201cBecause I would challenge anybody in here to point to me, which Palestinian is Hamas, and which one is an innocent civilian? \u2026 It should absolutely be every effort made to slow down any perceived assistance that\u2019s going there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mast later tripled down. \u201cI would encourage the other side to not so lightly throw around the idea of \u2018innocent Palestinian civilians,\u2019 as is frequently said,\u201d Mast said<\/a> on the House floor. \u201cI don’t think we would so lightly throw around the term \u2018innocent Nazi civilians\u2019 during World War II.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In late January, when asked about the babies Israeli forces have killed in Gaza, Mast responded<\/a> coldly: \u201cThese are not innocent Palestinian civilians.\u201d Confronted with the idea that Israel has destroyed more infrastructure<\/a> in Gaza than was destroyed in Dresden during World War II, Mast said, \u201cThere\u2019s more infrastructure that needs to be destroyed,\u201d repeated the line, and promised \u201cthere will be more that gets destroyed.\u201d Finally, he vowed to do everything he could to stop the government from supporting the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. Mast described the creation of UNRWA as \u201cmoronic\u201d; last month, Congress voted to defund the agency<\/a> for a full year, even as a widespread famine<\/a> looms over Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In late February, Tennessee Republican Andy Ogles vilely<\/a> dismissed protesters who took issue with their taxes going toward killing children. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’ve seen the footage of shredded children’s bodies \u2014 that’s my taxpayer dollars going to bomb those kids,\u201d a protester said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“You know what, so, I think we should kill ’em all,\u201d Ogles responded. \u201cIf that makes you feel better.”(His spokesperson later claimed<\/a> to The Tennessean that he “was not referring to Palestinians, he was clearly referring to the Hamas terrorist group.”) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The protesters cited Israeli forces starving women and children, killing over 300 health care workers, and \u201csniping Christian women in churches\u201d as war crimes. Ogles, however, instead responded only to being called an \u201cAIPAC zombie\u201d with \u201cDeath to Hamas.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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PRO-PALESTINE ACTIVIST: \u201cI\u2019ve seen ?of shredded children\u2019s bodies. That\u2019s my tax money bombing those kids.\u201d@AndyOgles<\/a>: \u201cI think we should kill em all, if that makes you feel better.\u201d

ACTIVIST: \u201cDo you even have a heart?\u201d

OGLES: \u201cDeath to Hamas.\u201d

A disturbing Ogles exchange. pic.twitter.com\/Dpnjqzw43n<\/a><\/p>— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) February 21, 2024<\/a><\/blockquote>