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Thursday, August 26, 2021

Sorry, @RashidaTlaib, but you cannot visit your grandmother - because the PA won't allow it

In 2019, after Israel originally denied permission for Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib to visit the West Bank because of their support for BDS, Tlaib appealed to Interior Minister Aryeh Deri asking to visit her elderly grandmother ("sity") on humanitarian grounds, saying that she will not use the occasion to promote boycotting Israel. 

Israel granted permission for her visit.

After a backlash from her fans, Tlaib did an about-face and angrily said that she would never submit to such humiliating restrictions - that she had explicitly accepted only one day beforehand. Her sity was just not that important.



This week, Tlaib criticized the Palestinian Authority for their arrests of protesters, telling Mahmoud Abbas "Shame on you!"

According to Khaled Abu Toameh,  as a result of her tweet, Tlaib "is persona non grata in Palestine, according to a senior Palestinian official in Ramallah."

So even if Tlaib would want to visit her grandmother now - whether through Israel or through Jordan -it looks like the Palestinian Authority would ban her.

Will there be any headlines about this?