US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) speaks at a rally calling on Congress to censure President Donald Trump on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, April 30, 2019. Photo: Reuters / Aaron P. Bernstein.

US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) called Israel a “racist state” in an interview Tuesday with the left-wing news program Democracy Now!, and falsely claimed that it was denying coronavirus vaccines to Palestinians.

“I think it’s really important to understand Israel is a racist state and that they would deny Palestinians, like my grandmother, access to a vaccine, that they don’t believe that she’s an equal human being that deserves to live, deserves to be able to be protected by this global pandemic,” Rep. Tlaib said in the interview with program host Amy Goodman.

Jewish groups have criticized recent claims that Israel is preventing COVID-19 vaccines from reaching Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, noting that the authority to acquire and distribute them belongs to the Palestinian Authority. Last month, the Palestinian health ministry approved a Russian vaccine against the coronavirus, and is expected to receive shipments of the shot next month.

“They have the power to distribute that vaccine to the Palestinian people, their own neighbors, again, feet away from where they live, many of which, again, could expose them and their family,” Tlaib continued. “If anything, it just reiterates what the Palestinian people and even human rights groups have been telling us, is that this is an apartheid state.”

“Will anyone on the Left condemn this phony attack on Israel?”, tweeted Richard Grenell, a former US Ambassador to Germany and Acting Director of National Intelligence who is now a special US envoy to Serbia and Kosovo.

Will anyone on the Left condemn this phony attack on Israel? https://t.co/yRBfKAknWy

— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) January 19, 2021

“Jewish-Americans would like a word, Congresswoman,” tweeted Bradley P. Moss, a prominent national security attorney.

.@RashidaTlaib Jewish-Americans would like a word, Congresswoman https://t.co/mHKHPN6Ga0

— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) January 19, 2021