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Michigan Attorney General Nessel calls U.S. Rep. Tlaib's accusation of bias anti-Semitic [1]
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Date: 2024-09-23
After U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, accused Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel of potential bias in bringing charges against pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Michigan, Nessel shot back last week to condemn Tlaib's criticism as anti-Semitic.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declined to take sides when asked about the spat in a CNN interview Sunday. Whitmer's comments, in turn, prompted conflicting reactions praising and condemning her for staying out of the fight between the pair of prominent Michigan politicians.
Earlier this month, Tlaib — the first Palestinian American woman to serve in Congress — blasted the criminal charges Nessel filed against the protesters, calling them "frivolous" and a "shameful attack on students' rights" in a social media post on X. One University of Michigan alumnus was charged with attempted ethnic intimidation, according to a news release from Nessel's office announcing the charges that did not elaborate further on the allegation.
Tlaib accused Nessel of singling out pro-Palestinian protesters in bringing the charges in an interview with the Detroit Metro Times. "We've had the right to dissent, the right to protest," Tlaib told the alternative weekly. "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." The piece did not quote Tlaib as referencing Nessel's Jewish identity.
Last week, Tlaib found herself depicted in a cartoon drawing depicting her as a target of the deadly explosions that killed and injured civilians and Hezbollah fighters last week for which the Lebanese militant group blamed Israel, according to reporting from USA TODAY. In the cartoon, a pager is shown smoking on Tlaib's desk. "Odd, my pager just exploded," Tlaib's thought bubble in the cartoon reads.
Nessel joined other Democrats who decried the depiction as bigoted. "Rashida's religion should not be used in a cartoon to imply that she's a terrorist. It's Islamophobic and wrong," Nessel wrote in a social media post on X last Friday.
But Nessel also weighed in with her own response to Tlaib's condemnation of the attorney general's leadership. "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," Nessel wrote.
Tlaib reposted another social media user's comment this past Sunday on Nessel's accusation of anti-Semitism. The social media comment said the attorney general was spreading misinformation about Tlaib's claim of biased prosecution leveled against Nessel. Detroit Metro Times reporter Steve Neavling, who published Tlaib's comments about Nessel, wrote a follow-up piece Monday saying Tlaib never said Nessel brought the charges against pro-Palestinian protesters because the attorney general is Jewish.
Whitmer was asked in a CNN interview whether she agrees with Nessel that Tlaib's suggestion of bias in the attorney general's office is anti-Semitic. "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," Whitmer said.
Campus protests:Michigan AG charges 11 pro-Palestinian protesters at University of Michigan
The executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' Michigan chapter, Dawud Walid, celebrated Whitmer's comments. "We welcome Governor Whitmer declining to support the stifling of freedom of speech through prosecutions, and her verbal support that all people including anti-genocide student protesters have the right to feel safe at the University of Michigan," he said in a statement in a news release Monday.
Meanwhile, CEO and National Director of the Anti-Defamation League Jonathan Greenblatt criticized Whitmer's comments. "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," he said in a social media post on X on Sunday.
Editor's note: A sentence in this story has been updated for clarity.
Contact Clara Hendrickson:
[email protected] or 313-296-5743. Follow her on X, previously called Twitter, @clarajanehen.
Looking for more on Michigan’s elections this year? Check out our voter guide, subscribe to our elections newsletter and always feel free to share your thoughts in a letter to the editor.
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[1] Url:
https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2024/09/23/rashida-tlaib-dana-nessel-fight-over-protesters-charges-escalates/75350758007/
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