Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Tlaib Says Times’s Headline Promoted ‘Lack Of Responsibility On Israel’

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Palestinian-American congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., criticized The New York Times for a headline on a story about the recent violence on the Israel-Gaza border, saying it promotes a “lack of responsibility on Israel.”

The headline read “Gaza Militants Fire 250 Rockets, and Israel Responds with Airstrikes.”

“When will the world stop dehumanizing our Palestinian people who just want to be free?” Tlaib’s full comment on Twitter read. “Headlines like this & framing it in this way just feeds into the continued lack of responsibility on Israel who unjustly oppress & target Palestinian children and families. #FreePalestine”

The executive director for the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, Yousef Munayyer, was first to call the headline “irresponsible” and “misleading,” noting that the rockets were launched after the latest Friday protests on the Israel-Gaza border, when Israel killed four people.

Israel sees the weekly protests, which have at times turned violent and which have as their stated aim breaching the border, as a security threat.

Tlaib is one of two current members of Congress who back the boycott Israel movement — Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., is the other — but she is the only one who calls for the replacement of Israel as a Jewish state with a binational state.

American Jewish Committee Executive Director David Harris pushed back against Tlaib.

“Do you endorse attacks of Hamas & Islamic Jihad?” Harris said on Twitter. “Is 2-state deal w/ Israel their goal? Is firing 100s of rockets at Israel justifiable? Does Israel have a right to defend itself? Btw, didn’t Israel leave Gaza in 2005, only asking for quiet border in return?”

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.