Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) addresses attendees as she takes part in a protest calling for a ceasefire in Gaza outside the US Capitol, in Washington, DC, US, Oct. 18, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis

The US House of Representatives has voted to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib, formally rebuking the Democrat from Michigan for her recent anti-Israel comments amid the Jewish state’s war with the terrorist group Hamas.

In a bipartisan vote, 22 Democrats joined 212 Republicans on Tuesday night in voting to censure Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress. Meanwhile, 188 lawmakers voted against the measure, including four Republicans. Four lawmakers just voted present.

While the punishment — which amounts to a public reprimand — is largely symbolic, it indicates widespread opposition to Tlaib’s wave of virulent comments attacking the Jewish sate since Hamas’ pogrom across southern Israel last month.

The censure measure, introduced by freshman Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) on Monday, accused Tlaib of “promoting false narratives” regarding Hamas’ Oct. 7 invasion of Israel, in which the Palestinian terrorist group killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians — the deadliest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Hamas terrorists also kidnapped over 240 people from Israel and took them as hostages back to Gaza, the Palestinian enclave ruled by Hamas.

McCormick’s measure accused Tlaib of “calling for the destruction of the state of Israel.”

Tlaib has come under bipartisan criticism for embracing and sharing on social media the phrase “from the river to the sea” — a slogan that has been widely used as a call for the destruction of Israel, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. According to the Anti-Defamation League’s website, the phrase is an “antisemitic charge denying the Jewish right to self-determination, including through the removal of Jews from their ancestral homeland.”

McCormick defended his measure on the House floor on Tuesday.

“If this is not worthy of censure, what is? When you can call for the annihilation of a country and its people, if that’s not worthy of a censure, what is?” he said.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the top-ranking Democrat in the House, said in a statement before the vote that echoing “slogans that are widely understood as calling for the complete destruction of Israel — such as ‘from the river to the sea’ — does not advance progress toward a two-state solution. Instead, it unacceptably risks further polarization, division, and incitement to violence.”

Tlaib has referred to Israel as an “apartheid government” guilty of “ethnic cleansing” against the Palestinians, and she previously compared the Jewish state to Nazi Germany. Last week, the lawmaker accused US President Joe Biden of supporting a “genocide” against Palestinians by supporting Israel’s right to defend itself in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre.

Following the group’s brutal terrorist onslaught last month, Tlaib and other members of the so-called “Squad” of far-left progressive House members came under fire for slamming Israel and seemingly blaming Israel without condemning Hamas by name.

Tlaib has remained defiant amid the criticism, defending her recent comments.

“It is important to separate people and governments,” she said on the House floor earlier on Tuesday. “The idea that criticizing the Israeli government is antisemitic sets a dangerous precedent.”

Tlaib grew emotional during debate of the censure resolution, at times seemingly choking back tears.

“I can’t believe I have to say this, but Palestinian people are not disposable,” she said. “The cries of the Palestinian and Israeli children sound no different to me.”

The Michigan Democrat also warned fellow lawmakers that calls for a ceasefire to the Israel-Hamas war are “growing every single day.”

“You can try to censure me, but you can’t silence their voices,” she said.

Israel has been waging a military campaign against Hamas in Gaza since Oct. 7, with the stated goal of incapacitating the terrorist group, whose leaders have frequently called for the destruction of the Jewish state. Israeli leaders have said a ceasefire at this time would strengthen Hamas and allow its fighters to regroup.

Tuesday’s vote came after a different measure to censure Tlaib last week, one brought by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), failed to advance to a vote. Greene’s resolution accused Tlaib of “antisemitic activity” and called an Oct. 18 protest on Capitol Hill, at which Tlaib had accused Israel of genocide, an “illegal occupation” of a House office building.