The Israeli Ministry of the Interior has issued permission to anti-Israel Congressman Rashida Tlaib to enter Israel in order for her to visit her grandmother.
Tlaib was slated to visit Israel to head a junket organized by the anti-Israel propaganda organization MIFTAH. She is an advocate of the Boycott Divestment Sanctions movement which targets Jewish-owned businesses for sanctions. The Israeli government announced on Thursday that it would bar Tlaib and other congressmen from entering Israel due to their advocating for the end of the Jewish State of Israel.
A dispensation was granted to Tlaib on the order of Interior Minister Aryeh Deri on Friday in response to a letter he received from Tlaib.
Breaking: Israel’s interior minister just approved @RashidaTlaib’s petition to enter Israel ‘on humanitarian grounds’ to visit her Palestinian grandmother @ the West Bank. She had to promise not to promote #BDS during the visit https://t.co/e8K2ZgtOUQ pic.twitter.com/q9ULe25xX2
— Noa Landau נעה לנדאו (@noa_landau) August 16, 2019
In the letter, Tlaib claimed the visit was “in order to visit relatives, especially my grandmother who is in her nineties, and lives in Beit Ur al-Fauqa. This may be my last opportunity to see her.”
Deri’s office released a statement on Friday morning which was published in Haaretz.
“Tlaib sent a letter last night to Minister Dery, in which she promised to hold to Israel’s requests, respect the limitations put on her for the visit and also affirmed that she would not promote the boycott against Israel during her visit.” Dery expressed hope that “she will stand by her obligations and the visit will be for humanitarian means alone.”
Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan (Likud) recommended approving Tlaib’s personal request, “in light of her commitment to respect Israeli law and not to promote boycotts against us.”
Tlaib’s uncle Bassem criticized Israel’s initial decision to bar Tlaib in an interview with i24NEWS .
“As a member of American congress and also as a Palestinian, for some of her life Rashida lived under occupation,” Tlaib’s uncle Bassem told i24NEWS. “She lived the reality of suffering from the Israeli occupation, so the message of her visit will be different from what you hear in the media about this region.”
Rashida Tlaib was born on July 24, 1976, to working-class Palestinian immigrants in Detroit and according to all reports lived her entire life in the U.S. It is unclear which “occupation” Bassem was referring to.
