Rashida Tlaib: “As the only Palestinian American serving in Congress, I am a reminder to many of my colleagues in this Chamber that…”

“As the only Palestinian American serving in Congress, I am a reminder to many of my colleagues in this Chamber that Palestinians do indeed exist, we are human beings, that we deserve to live, that we have dreams of freedom and human dignity. I read this quote: ``When you tell a people to forget its past, you are not proposing peace, you are proposing extinction.'' This is from Peter Beinart. As we mark 76 years of the Nakba, we honor the thousands of Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed in 1948 and nearly 800,000 Palestinians who were violently and forcibly displaced, many, Madam Speaker, still carrying their keys in hopes of one day returning to their homes, to their villages. We honor their trauma and the painful loss of their connections to their families, land, olive groves, and villages they grew up in. We honor all those around the world who have suffered from the impacts of settler colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid. Madam Speaker, the Nakba did not end in 1948. ____________________”