Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s (D-Mich.) Lebanon war powers resolution was shut down Thursday, with the majority of House Democrats rejecting the “Squad” rep’s effort.
In the floor vote, 117 Democrats voted against her resolution, and 91 voted in favor, resulting in a 92-324 defeat of Tlaib’s attempt to limit potential Trump administration military options in Lebanon.
Tlaib insisted Israel was carrying out an “ethnic cleansing campaign,” and Congress must intervene to stop the “war crime.”
“The Trump administration is helping in greenlighting these attacks,” she said, as Israel seeks to root out the Hezbollah terror threat in Lebanon as a second front to the war against Iran.
Her Lebanon War Powers resolution divided her own Democratic Party and was rebuked by House Republicans. The resolution would have directed President Trump to remove armed forces “from Lebanon” within seven days after its adoption.
But House Democratic leadership, including Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), came out against her resolution by citing a practical reality. “There are no US servicemembers involved in combat operations or hostilities in Lebanon,” Jeffries said in a statement.
Republicans, like Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), similarly noted that Tlaib was demanding the removal of US forces “from a country where we are not in conflict.”
The debate over the resolution got personal when Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) accused Tlaib of supporting Hezbollah and suggested she enjoys the company of terrorists.
“Hezbollah is a terrorist organization … and its members are butchers that you like to hang out with to a certain extent,” Miller said.
The remark incited a shouting match that saw Tlaib yell at the congressman from across the room as he further charged that Tlaib “advocates for terrorists on a daily basis” and advocated “for a terrorist regime every single day.”
“That is an attack on my character,” Tlaib protested, and the Republican’s remarks were eventually stricken from the record.
On Thursday, Tlaib claimed, “every weapon we know that is sent to the Israeli apartheid regime right now is used to carry out the genocide in Gaza.”
“The ethnic cleansing campaign continues not only in Palestine but now expanding in Lebanon and we know that every bomb paid for, again by US dollars, is overwhelmingly opposed by Americans of all different political backgrounds,” Tlaib railed at a Thursday press conference at the Capitol.
“We know that violence only is possible because our country provides the ammunition and the green light over and over again.”
Her broadside against Israel came during a “Block the Bombs” press conference — with Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill) and Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) — to tout a separate bill that would prohibit Trump from “selling, transferring, or exporting certain defense articles or services to Iran.”
Tlaib, who is Palestinian-American and has family in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has been vocally opposed to the US-Israel war against Iran and funding weapons to Israel.
The House passed a separate war powers resolution on Wednesday, with support from four Republicans on its fourth try. The bill aims to direct Trump to end hostilities with Iran and heads to the Senate for consideration.
House leaders said they are working to support an alternative resolution of the war that would preserve any coordination between the US and the Lebanese Armed Forces.
“We stand with the Lebanese people, the government of Lebanon and the Lebanese Armed Forces in their efforts to live peacefully and defeat Hezbollah,” Jeffries and his top deputies said.
