(20 Aug 2019) Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib sharply criticized Israel on Monday for denying them entry to the Jewish state and called on fellow members of Congress to visit while they cannot.
Omar, of Minnesota, suggested President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were suppressing the lawmakers' ability to carry out their oversight role.
"I would encourage my colleagues to visit, meet with the people we were going to meet with, see the things we were going to see, hear the stories we were going to hear," Omar said at a news conference.
At Trump's urging, Israel denied entry to the first two Muslim women elected to Congress over their support for a Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions global movement.
Tlaib and Omar, who had planned to visit Jerusalem and the Israeli-occupied West Bank on a tour organized by a Palestinian group, are outspoken critics of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.
Tlaib, a U.S.-born Palestinian-American from Michigan, had also planned to visit her ageing grandmother in the West Bank.
Israeli officials later relented and said she could visit her grandmother after all.
But Tlaib got emotional as she told how her "Sitty" -Â Â an Arabic term of endearment for one's grandmother that's spelled different ways in English - urged her during a tearful late-night family phone call not to come under what they considered such humiliating circumstances.
"She said I'm her dream manifested. I'm her free bird," Tlaib recalled. "So why would I come back and be caged and bow down when my election rose her head up high, gave her dignity for the first time?"
Tlaib and Omar were joined Monday by Minnesota residents who said they had been directly affected by travel restrictions in the past.
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