Rashida Tlaib Comments on Pro-Palestine Student Arrests Spark Controversy

Democratic Representative Rashida Tlaib’s comments about charges filed against people who took part in a pro-Palestinian demonstration have sparked controversy online, with some accusing her of antisemitism and others saying she was being smeared.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is Jewish, recently announced charges against 11 people over their involvement in a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of Michigan. Most were students and alumni charged for refusing to vacate the campus encampment in May, the Detroit Metro Times reported.
Outrage over Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza sparked protests on college campuses across the country in the spring, with students setting up encampments to call on their schools to cut financial ties to Israel and divest from companies they say are enabling the war. Universities cracked down, and thousands were arrested nationwide. More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s offensive, launched after Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7 that killed about 1,200 people and saw about 250 others taken hostage.
Tlaib—the only Palestinian American in Congress and a vocal critic of Israel—slammed Nessel’s decision to pursue charges against the protesters in an interview with the Metro Times earlier this month.
She said the move was “going to set a precedent, and it’s unfortunate that a Democrat made that move.”
Tlaib said: “We’ve had the right to dissent, the right to protest. We’ve done it for climate, the immigrant rights movement, for Black lives, and even around issues of injustice among water shutoffs. But it seems that the attorney general decided if the issue was Palestine, she was going to treat it differently, and that alone speaks volumes about possible biases within the agency she runs.”
Nessel had defended the decision to charge the protesters, saying that “conviction in your ideals is not an excuse for violations of the law” and that “what is a crime anywhere else in the city remains a crime on university property.”
She responded to Tlaib’s comments to the newspaper on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) on Friday, characterizing them as antisemitic.
In the post, she also criticized a Detroit News cartoon that showed Tlaib next to an exploding pager as Islamophobic.
“Rashida’s religion should not be used in a cartoon to imply that she’s a terrorist. It’s Islamophobic and wrong,” Nessel wrote. “Just as Rashida should not use my religion to imply I cannot perform my job fairly as Attorney General. It’s anti-Semitic and wrong.”
Newsweek has contacted Tlaib and Nessel for further comment via email.
Josh Kraushaar, the editor-in-chief of Jewish Insider, alleged in a piece on Sunday that Tlaib had “claimed that Nessel is only charging the protesters because she’s Jewish” and that Nessel had “publicly decried the congresswoman’s characterization as antisemitic and wrong.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, later hit out at Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for declining to weigh in on the matter.
“When a congresswoman accuses the attorney general of prosecuting protestors simply because she’s Jewish, it’s bias,” Greenblatt wrote on X. “Saying you want to ‘make sure that students are safe on our campuses’ is just words if you are not willing to use your bully pulpit to speak out unequivocally on antisemitism and support holding people accountable for violating the law when it affects Jews.”
Whitmer, a Democrat, said she was “not going to get into the middle of this argument” when asked about it during an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.
“I can just say this: You know, we do want to make sure that students are safe on our campuses, and we recognize that every person has the right to make their statement about how they feel about an issue, a right to speak out. And I’m going to use every lever of mine to ensure that both are true,” she said.
Others on social media said that Tlaib had made no mention of Nessel’s religion in her comments and that there was a smear campaign against the congresswoman.
“Why are you smearing Rashida Tlaib with an outright lie? She made no mention of anyone being Jewish,” Katie Halper, a political commentator who is Jewish, wrote on X, in response to a post from Kraushaar.
“This is libelous but you’re desperate because you can’t criticize her without misrepresenting her as an antisemite. So disgusting.”
Jon Rainwater, the executive director of Peace Action, wrote: “Greenblatt is blatantly lying w/ this antisemitism smear against Rep. Tlaib & Gov. Whitmer. He, AG Nessel, & Jewish Insider are spreading misinfo. Tlaib asked whether the AG’s office was biased against protesters.”
Some of the protesters “are no doubt Jewish,” Rainwater wrote. “Many institutions inc. @ADL ARE biased.”
Journalist Mehdi Hasan wrote: “There is a coordinated smear campaign going on against Rep. @RashidaTlaib. Again.”