Tlaib Criticized for Supporting SaveSheikhJarrah
The Claim
Israeli settlers have set fire to Palestinian land in an attempt to evict them and occupy their homes.
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Emerging story
American congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has been accused of spreading misinformation and hate speech. Attacks came after she tweeted on the Palestinian situation unraveling in Sheikh Jarrah. Representative Betty McCollum was also criticized for spreading lies after she tweeted about the same topic.
Misbar’s Analysis
Tlaib received a large amount of backlash, as seen below, from verified users, including an Israeli human rights lawyer Arsen Ostrovsky accusing her of spreading misinformation, bigotry, and hate speech, including antisemitism, and asked to retract her posts, as can be seen below.
Those who accused Tlaib of spreading misinformation refer back to the claim being retracted or debunked, however. We didn't find the circulating claim debunked. B’tselem was the organization that revoked the claim. According to their bio, B’tselem is an Israeli information center for human rights in the Occupied Territories.
Upon investigation, the Misbar team found several posts by B’tselem still on their official Twitter account with the claim in English and Hebrew as seen below in which they state that settlers started the fire, confirmation that B’tselem did not retract the posts.
The Media Bias Fact Check website rates the Middle East Eye as “mostly factual” reporting and a “high” credibility rating, as seen below. Their article, which Tlaib shared, was information-dense and offered eye witness reports.
Moreover, many European countries have spoken out against the situation, saying, "We urge the government of Israel to reverse its decision to advance the construction of 540 settlement units in the Har Homa E area of the occupied West Bank, and to cease its policy of settlement expansion across the Occupied Palestinian Territories.” However, censorship is exceptionally high, with the latest censorship occurring on Instagram. It is, therefore, vital to spread awareness about such human rights abuses and to combat misinformation. Given the history of settlers burning Palestinian land, mainly agricultural targeting olive trees, eye witness reports including by Mohammed Kurd, European nations speaking out, the preceding video evidence of settlers stealing Palestinian homes in Sheikh Jarrah, the general context of Israeli plans to remove and occupy the land forcibly, Misbar finds the claim to be valid.
