(May 25, 2023 / JNS) Twice in the text of House Resolution 388, “Recognizing the ongoing Nakba and Palestine refugees rights,” Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) refers to the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018.

The second reference directs the U.S. president to apply the law—named for the late Nobel Prize laureate, Holocaust survivor, scholar, activist and prolific author—“to the treatment of Palestinians by Israel.”

Those invocations of his father’s name led Elisha Wiesel to pen an op-ed in The Hill slamming the congresswoman, who has a history of antisemitic remarks, for weaponizing the genocide prevention act.

“This Sunday night is the second of Sivan, the yahrzeit for my family members who perished shortly after their arrival to Auschwitz. I didn’t expect that this week I would also have to publicly defend my father’s name and life’s work,” he tweeted on May 19.

“Democratic leaders who truly believe in the values my father stood for should speak out forcefully against this cynical accusation,” he wrote in The Hill. “These false charges of genocide against Israel are smears long used by critics who apply classical anti-Semitic tropes to the Jewish state. And they have consequences.”

“To utilize my father’s name in such vile accusations is so far beyond the pale that I am staggered by the silence in response,” he added.

Photo: Reuters