Rep. Rashida Tlaib On Holocaust: 'There's Always Kind Of A Calming Feeling'

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) has made controversial comments on the Holocaust and Israel that will put more pressure on the Democratic leadership to denounce House members making anti-Semitic comments.

Tlaib, the first Palestinian-American Congresswoman, said Sunday that thinking of the Holocaust provides her a "calming feeling."

The lawmaker made the comments on the "Skullduggery" podcast [29:45 mins]of Yahoo News, in an episode titled "From Rashida with Love," while discussing the Israel-Palestinian conflict. She also made more comments on the origin of the conflict that revealed an imperfect understanding of its history.

"There’s always kind of a calming feeling, I tell folks, when I think of the Holocaust, and the tragedy of the Holocaust, and the fact that it was my ancestors — Palestinians — who lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, their human dignity, their existence in many ways, have been wiped out, and some people's passports," Tlaib said on the podcast.

Republicans quickly slammed Tlaib for the statements, with House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) saying in a statement: "More than six million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust; there is nothing 'calming' about that fact."

House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) called on the Dems leadership to "take action against Representative Tlaib and other members of the Democratic caucus who are spreading vile anti-Semitism."

While Tlaib's comments have been described as "sickening," they are also historically inaccurate, because the Jews were present in Israel thousands of years ago, and even the modern migration of Jews to the area started decades before the Holocaust.

Also, the comments ignore the existence of anti-Semitism in Palestine much before Israel was formed. The Washington Examiner in a report said: "During World War II, the Palestinian leader at the time, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Muhammad Amin al-Husayni, met with Adolf Hitler and allied with the Nazis. As the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum recounts, 'al-Husayni collaborated with the German and Italian governments by broadcasting pro-Axis, anti-British, and anti-Jewish propaganda via radio to the Arab world; inciting violence against Jews and the British authorities in the Middle East; and recruiting young men of Islamic faith for service in German military, Waffen-SS , and auxiliary units. In turn, the Germans and the Italians used al-Husayni as a tool to inspire support and collaboration among Muslim residents of regions under Axis control and to incite anti-Allied violence and rebellion among Muslims residing beyond the reach of German arms.' "

Tlaib and her ally Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), both Muslim and members of the left-leaning 'progressives' club in the Democratic party, are no strangers to such controversies. Recently Vice President Mike Pence called on the Dems leadership to remove Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee for making anti-Semitic and anti-Israel comments.

Last week Omar had sparked a controversy with a tweet on the latest round of violence in Gaza that seemed to put the blame on Israel, but ignored the fact that it was triggered by the Palestinian terror group Hamas firing rockets into the Jewish nation.

Following an earlier controversy, the House had passed a resolution condemning anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, but had failed to name Omar or Tlaib.

Last month the Zionist Organization Of America (ZOA) called called on the Dems leadership to throw out Tlaib from the party and congressional committees, citing what it called "newly revealed evidence of her pernicious associates." The first Palestinian-American woman to serve in Congress, Tlaib's associations with pro-Hamas and pro-Hezbollah activists have been condemned before.

The ZOA had said: “She calls Israel a ‘racist country’ on the basis of the lie that Israel discriminates against those ‘darker skinned,’ supports the destruction of Israel in favor of an Arab-dominated state (“It has to be one state”), ‘absolutely’ backs withholding U.S. aid from Israel, and openly supports the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which is committed to international ostracism and weakening of Israel with a view to its eventual elimination."

Separately, the Times of Israel reported that Tlaib and other freshmen Congressmen would visit the West Bank on Aug.17-22.