#RashidaWatch: Rising Voices in Florida Defend Tlaib & Condemn Anti-Arab Racism
Hallandale Beach Commissioner Anabelle Lima-Taub and U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib.
By: Hamza Khan/Arab America Contributing Writer
This past Wednesday, representatives from the Emgage Foundation, together with representatives from a slew of immigrant, Jewish & civil rights organizations organized a press conference to condemn racist & bigoted statements made by Hallandale Beach Commission Annabelle Lima-Taub.
Groups slated to sponsor the press conference included the Florida Immigrant Coalition (FLIC), New Florida Majority (New FM), Jews Against Anti-Muslim Racism, and Jewish Voice for Peace South Florida. All intended to have a senior representative on hand to speak at the event against Commissioner Lima-Taub’s bigoted comments about Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib.
Lima-Taub had previously described Congresswoman Tlaib as a “Hamas-lover” who would “become a martyr and blow up Capitol Hill.” She then doubled down on her comments by sharing fake news story from an Islamophobic website, even after mainstream political entities and center-right Jewish organizations condemned her.
The press conference featured a stunningly broad coalition, paying compliment to the work of longtime Arab American activist Vetnah Monessar, of the Emgage Foundation. Emgage has been growing as the national political voice of a new generation of Muslim Americans committed to asserting Millennial Clout in the political process. Monessar, is being hailed as a bridge-builder between Floridian Jews and Muslims–in sharp contrast to Lima-Taub, whose Israeli-American origin has aggravated Jewish leaders and worked to deepen mistrust between Arabs and Jews in the Sunshine State.
Bridge-Building in Focus
Photo: Sun Sentinel
The comments by Lima-Taub come on the back of increasingly fraught efforts by Muslim and Jewish millennial activists to establish a detente nationwide in the face of growing anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Lima-Taub, a Gen Xer with apparently little incentive to build bridges with Muslim and Arab constituents, has become a lightning rod for all the wrong reasons, chiefly exposing the deep-rooted bigotry of an older generation of political personalities opposed to embracing an American Dream for those, not of the same race of background as themselves.
Florida has become increasingly a battleground between the progressive and anti-diversity wings of the Democratic Party. While the Left lost their champion Andrew Gillum’s race for Florida’s governor, they won perhaps far more transformative victory to restore voting rights to Florida’s 1.6 million former convicts. Traditionally, former convicts lean politically towards the left after repaying their debt to society. Gillum lost by less than 52,000 votes.
The Rise of a New Florida
The organization Emgage has played an important role in persuading the often conservative Arab & Muslim immigrant communities to support an increasingly progressive public policy platform. Key to this is the 192,000 registered Muslim voters that Emgage has identified as of the 2018 elections.
Many immigrant Arab and Muslim communities have favored a tougher stance on crime and penalties due to traditional attitudes towards law enforcement & criminals. However, through consistent engagement and the emergence of Millennial-focused leadership outside of traditional mosque power-brokers has played an important role in liberalizing attitudes.
The Yemeni Rashida-Meets-AOC: Vetnah Monessar
Monessar, herself a Yemeni-American, has become one of Florida’s most respected and feared political operatives. Working against a community culture that until recently has been less than gender-equal, Monessar’s demeanor as a calm and sophisticated political thinker who eschews conflict in favor of coalition-building has won her allies and the begrudging respect of even the most anti-immigrant and Islamophobic establishment figures in South Florida.
Among the Arab American community’s traditional political non-allies, South Asian Muslims, Monessar also has received high marks for professionalism and a commitment to multiculturalism. Whether she ever runs for office herself remains to be seen, but her deep roots in the Yemeni diaspora and her ability to bridge the notorious Arab-Desi divide among Muslim Americans would make her a formidable force in Florida politics. Two Floridian political figures described Monessar as “the Yemeni AOC”– likening her to the Bronx’s Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes. Monessar herself grew up in the Bronx, frequenting and helping to organize its many Yemeni-owned bodegas.
When Diversity Fails: Lima-Taub’s Haifa Connection
Probably the strangest part about Lima-Taub’s racist statements about Congresswoman Tlaib is the fact that Lima-Taub grew up in Israel’s touted liberal hub of Arab-Jewish coexistence: Haifa. 10% of Haifa’s population is Arab of Levantine and Palestinian origin, and the headquarters of the inclusive and pluralistic Baha’i faith are located there. Large communities of minority faith Druze and Ahmadis–a Pakistani-origin religious community with beliefs similar to Bahai’ism–also exist in the city.
Politically, the city is a Labour party stronghold, with a number of Arab and Jewish communists alike elected to the Israeli Knesset from its electoral districts. Lima-Taub came to the United States as a young person, settling in the diverse melting pot of South Florida. What drove Lima-Taub to embrace racism after being exposed to such ethnic diversity and political pluralism during her childhood is as unclear as it is depressing.
One can only hope that, with the rise of empowered & enlightened Arab American voices for pluralism like Vetnah Monessar that Lima-Taub will change her tone, and embrace the diversity of her childhood over the gutter-talk of Donald Trump.
Hamza Khan is a syndicated political columnist & the founder of The Pluralism Project, an organization committed to training & electing Americans of diverse heritages to public office.