"Genocide denial" Palestinian congresswoman takes apart House vote to hide Gaza death toll

Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian member of US congress, condemned an amendment that aims to conceal the Palestinian death toll by as “genocide denial” of Israel’s crimes.

The amendment later passed by 269-144 votes. If it’s signed into law, the bill would prohibit the state department from referencing figures from the Gaza Health Ministry. As part of a wider state department funding measure, the bill will now go to the senate.

“Erase Palestinians”

Tlaib took to the floor, saying:

Since 1948, Mr speaker, there has been a coordinated effort, especially in this chamber, to dehumanise Palestinians and erase Palestinians from existence.

In 1948, Zionists established Israel through taking over 78% of Palestine, displacing 750,000 and massacring the native people. US President Harry S Truman was one of the first to recognise the colonial endeavour and its provisional government as the new state of Israel. The US has broadly supported Israel since, sending military aid that now stands at $3.8bn per year.

Israel has occupied the remaning Palestinian territory – the West Bank and Gaza since 1967. And it has been expanding settlements in Palestinian territory even further, killing over 500 Palestinians in the West Bank in 2023.

Tlaib continued:

Where is our shared humanity in this chamber? There is so much anti-Palestinian racism in this chamber that my colleagues don’t even want to acknowledge that Palestinians exist at all. Not when they’re alive and now not even when they’re dead. It’s absolutely disgusting. This is genocide denial.

Propagandising the figures for Israel

Since 7 October, Israel has killed 38,271 Palestinian people including over 15,000 children. But now the US House of Representatives wants to officially hide the stats. The mainstream media has long been putting doubt on the figures through characterising the Gaza Health Ministry as ‘Hamas run’.

Take the BBC. During an escalation of the violence in 2014, the BBC simply referred to the ministry as the “health ministry in Gaza” or the “Palestinian health ministry”. But now the Palestinian death toll figures have skyrocketed, it’s difficult to propagandise them away. So the BBC now constantly calls the health ministry ‘Hamas run’.

Joe Biden himself also cast doubt on the figures, saying in October that he has “no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using”.

In response to the amendment, Tlaib brought a list of the names of the Palestinians Israel has killed:

I will submit for the inclusion into the congressional record the list of the Palestinians killed… the list is too long that I can’t even submit it because of the text limit. That’s how many have been killed.

Mohammed Khader, policy manager for the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights Action, told the Intercept:

By preventing any recognition of the number of Palestinians killed since October, this amendment is a clear example of genocide denial and is no different from what was done towards victims of genocides in Rwanda and Armenia

One doesn’t need high expectations of humanity to expect a US (and UK) bipartisan-backed genocide not to fly in 2024. We must oppose it:

It’s disgusting that my colleagues would support legislation to prohibit U.S. officials from even citing the Palestinian death toll.

They want to erase the Palestinians who are living, and now they are trying to erase the Palestinians who are dead. This is genocide denial. pic.twitter.com/ZY3x0BIlQ0

— Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (@RepRashida) June 27, 2024