Michigan AG Dana Nessel: Tlaib's criticism is 'antisemitic'

(JTA) — Michigan’s Jewish attorney general has accused the state’s Palestinian-American congresswoman of antisemitism, in a war of words between two prominent Democrats that could upend an already tense battleground state.

The exchange between Attorney General Dana Nessel and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, formerly friends, stems from Nessel’s decision to file charges this month against 11 pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Michigan. In a Sept. 12 statement, Nessel emphasized the right to free speech but accused the 11 protesters at the university’s encampment last spring of “violent and criminal behavior,” including obstructing police and trespassing.

In an interview with a local paper the following day, Tlaib likened the campus protests to other demonstrations against racism and for immigrant rights. She told the Detroit Metro Times that Nessel chose to prosecute the 11 because of “possible biases.”

“It seems that the attorney general decided if the issue was Palestine, she was going to treat it differently, and that alone speaks volumes about possible biases within the agency she runs,” she said.

Nessel’s office confirmed to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that she took that remark as a reference to her Jewish identity. In a social media post on Friday, she condemned a political cartoon that suggested Tlaib was affiliated with Hezbollah — and also called out the congresswoman for antisemitism.

The Detroit News cartoon depicted Tlaib looking at a smoking device on her desk, and saying “Odd, my pager exploded,” a reference to last week’s attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“Rashida’s religion should not be used in a cartoon to imply that she’s a terrorist. It’s Islamophobic and wrong,” Nessel said on X. “Just as Rashida should not use my religion to imply I cannot perform my job fairly as Attorney General. It’s antisemitic and wrong.”

Tlaib’s office declined to comment. In the wake of the furor, the Detroit Metro Times in a follow up ran an article entitled “Fact-check: Tlaib did not say Nessel charged pro-Palestinian protesters because she’s Jewish.”

The article, by the same reporter who initially interviewed Tlaib, noted that the congresswoman did not explicitly reference Nessel’s being Jewish and said that “Tlaib was referring to anti-Palestinian attitudes” when she alleged there was bias in Nessel’s office.

Nessel appearing on CNN on Monday said Tlaib was using easily understood dog whistles.

“Look for [Tlaib] to say that I could handle a litany of other cases, and that was fine, but when it comes to anything involving pro-Palestinian protesters, I could not be fair, I could not be objective. And I don’t think you have to be Angela Lansbury to figure this out, right?” she said .”Clearly, she’s referencing my religion as to why she thinks I can’t be fair.”

Nessel likened Tlaib’s remarks to political attacks Nessel has sustained because she is gay.

“In 2022 when my opponent accused me of being a groomer and a pedophile, everyone understood that those were homophobic remarks because I happen to be gay, right?” she said. “I didn’t have to explain it to people.”

The Anti-Defamation League CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, in a tweet reproached Tlaib for accusing “the attorney general of prosecuting protestors simply because she’s Jewish.”

Tlaib’s defenders said that was a distortion.

“This is just a lie,” tweeted Dylan Williams, vice president for governmental affairs at the Center for International Policy, a progressive think tank, quoting Greenblatt’s tweet. “Falsely accusing a Congresswoman who is a frequent target of bigotry of doing something she didn’t isn’t just defamatory — it risks inciting more hatred and even violence against her.”

The public spat between the two officials comes as the state’s top Democrats are seeking to tamp down debate over Israel and Gaza as a tight presidential and Senate election near. Democrats are relying on Michigan’s large Jewish and Arab populations if they are to win.

On Sunday, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer did not answer directly when CNN anchor Jake Tapper asked her if Tlaib’s statement was antisemitic.

“I’m not going to get in the middle of this argument that they’re having,” she said. “I can just say this. We do want to make sure that students are safe on our campuses, and we recognize that every person has the right to make their statement about how they feel about an issue, a right to speak out, and I’m going to use every lever of mine to ensure that both are true.”

Whitmer later issued a statement explicitly siding with Nessel. “The suggestion that Attorney General Nessel would make charging decisions based on her religion as opposed to the rule of law is antisemitic,” Whitmer said. “We must all use our platforms and voices to call out hateful rhetoric and racist tropes.”

The Tlaib cartoon, which also appeared in the National Review Online, has drawn broader condemnation, including from Rep. Elissa Slotkin, the Jewish Democratic nominee for Michigan’s Senate seat. She called the cartoon “Islamophobic and downright dangerous” and called for its retraction.

A group of Jewish House Democrats from across the country condemned the cartoon in similar terms, calling it a “toxically Islamophobic and anti-Arab affront.”

“While none of us always agrees with Representative Tlaib (just as she surely does not always agree with any of us) that is no reason to excuse this,” said the statement, issued Sunday.

Slotkin also joined nine other Jewish Democrats and a number of non-Jewish Democrats in defending Nessel in a statement spearheaded by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida.  “Elected officials are rightfully held to high standards, but we owe it to our constituents to model methods of disagreement that do not invoke hateful tropes or false charges of unfair bias,” the statement said.

The exchange is the latest stage in a souring of relations between Nessel and Tlaib, who were once allies. In 2019, Nessel came to the defense of Tlaib when the Trump administration persuaded Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to block her from entering Israel and the West Bank, where Tlaib’s grandmother lives.

“As both a Jew and personal friend of Rep. Tlaib, I am outraged that she continues to face vile attacks simply for who she is and for doing her job,” Nessel said at the time. “Rashida does not judge a person based on religion, race, national origin, sexual orientation or any other classification.”

But as in so many other relationships, the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war last Oct. 7 marked a shift. In November, Nessel took Tlaib to task for defending the phrase “from the river to the sea,” which many Jews see as a call for the destruction of Israel but which Palestinians say is a call for equality.

“Rashida Tlaib, I have supported and defended you countless times, even when you have said the indefensible, because I believed you to be a good person whose heart was in the right place,” Nessel said then. “But this is so hurtful to so many. Please retract this cruel and hateful remark.”