Family of Rashida Tlaib in Occupied West Bank Celebrates Her Win in US Midterms

Rashida Tlaib’s extended family celebrated her victory in the occupied West Bank Wednesday as Tlaib became the first Palestinian-American woman to be elected in the United States Congress.

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She has become “a source of pride for Palestine and the entire Arab and Muslim world,” her uncle, Bassam Tlaib, said in the small village of Beit Ur Al-Fauqa.

The progressive candidate ran in Michigan’s 13th Congressional district, which encompasses southwest Detroit and its suburbs west to the city of Dearborn. Along with Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar, she will become the first Muslim women to be in an elected office in the U.S.

Born to Palestinian immigrants in Detroit, Talib began her political career in 2004. She started working for Michigan State Representative Steve Tobocman and four years later ran for the same seat, winning and becoming the second Muslim to serve in the Michigan Legislature.

In the West Bank city of Ramallah and throughout the territory, Palestinians took a cautious view of the election news.

“Change is incremental, and Palestinians in Palestine are intimately aware of that,” said Salem Barahmeh, executive director of the Ramallah-based Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy. “That said, Tlaib’s election is seen as a glimmer of hope in a very dark chapter in the Palestinian people’s history,” Barahmeh added.

Bassam Tlaib, the candidate’s uncle, said she had “stood against Trump” at a time when “even our Arab leaders are unwilling to face (him).”

“I’m going to speak truth to power,” Tlaib told the Detroit Free Press on election night on Tuesday. “I obviously have a set agenda that’s not going to be a priority for the current president but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to push back.”

In California’s 50th district, Ammar Campa-Najjar, a Palestinian-American who spent part of his childhood in Gaza and whose father served in the Palestinian Authority, was in a close race with incumbent Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter, early results showed.

“The success of [Tlaib and Campa-Najjar’s] progressive messaging on a wide range of issues, including Palestine, is reflective of a shifting public discourse that Palestine activists have played a role in shaping,” said Omar Baddar, deputy director of the Washington-based Arab American Institute.