Snubbing AIPAC, US lawmaker endorses BDS, says will lead trip to West Bank

Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian-American woman elected to Congress, said on Monday that won’t attend an annual trip to Israel sponsored by pro-Israel AIPAC lobby. Instead, Tlaib pledged support to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, saying she will organize her own delegation to the West Bank. 

"I personally support the BDS movement," Tlaib told The Intercept. "I want us to see that segregation and how that has really harmed us being able to achieve real peace in that region."

Slamming Israel's military control of the West Bank, Tlaib said "I want us to see that segregation and how that has really harmed us being able to achieve real peace in that region." 

"I don’t think AIPAC provides a real, fair lens into this issue. It’s one-sided. They have these lavish trips to Israel, but they don’t show the side that I know is real, which is what’s happening to my grandmother and what’s happening to my family there."

Tlaib became the first Muslim woman elected to the US House of Representative after winning the congressional race in Michigan’s 13th Congressional District. 

She becomes the second US lawmaker to endorse BDS after another newcomer, Minnesota's Ilhan Omar.

According to the Intercept, her delegation will focus on issues such as Israel’s detention of Palestinian children, clean water and poverty.