The 90-year-old grandmother of Rep. Rashida Tlaib ripped President Trump for his comments about her controversial granddaughter’s off-again visit to the Land of Milk and Honey.
Muftia Tlaib, who spoke with Reuters in her garden in the village of Beit Ur Al-Fauqa in the West Bank, Israel was dismissive of a tweet by the president that suggested she should be happy the congresswoman won’t be visiting, after the Michigan Democrat rejected the unspecified restrictions Israel imposed on any trip to the disputed territory.
In response, the granny said: “Trump tells me I should be happy Rashida is not coming — May God ruin him.”
On Friday, Trump tweeted that: “Rep. Tlaib wrote a letter to Israeli officials desperately wanting to visit her grandmother. Permission was quickly granted, whereupon Tlaib obnoxiously turned the approval down, a complete setup.”
He continued: “The only real winner here is Tlaib’s grandmother. She doesn’t have to see her now!”
The family became the center of a dispute that drew in Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after Israel initially barred Tlaib and fellow Democrat Ilhan Omar of Minnesota from a visit it initially said it would allow under pressure from Trump.
Israel cited the two congresswomen’s support for the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, which opposes Israel’s policies toward Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. BDS backers can be denied entry to Israel by law.
Israel on Friday reversed its decision and said it would let Tlaib visit her family on humanitarian grounds — but Tlaib rejected the offer, saying that Israel had imposed”oppressive conditions” designed to humiliate her.
“Silencing me & treating me like a criminal is not what she wants for me,” Tlaib tweeted, referring to her grandmother. “It would kill a piece of me.”
Tlaib did not describe the conditions imposed on her visit. Israeli media reported that she had agreed to “not promote boycotts against Israel during my visit.”
The freshman Democrat hasn’t seen her grandmother since 2006. Uncle Bassam Tlaib said the lawmaker “sees her granny as a second mother, she has always supported her. Rashida says she owes her success to her grandmother.”
The grandmother is hopeful she will see her granddaughter soon: “My heart tells me that she will come.”
With Post wires
