Michigan Rep-Elect Rashida Tlaib Defends Fired CNN Commentator Marc Lamont Hill After Anti-Israel Speech

Michigan Congresswoman-elect Rashida Tlaib sent a message of support to Marc Lamont Hill, a former CNN commentator who was dropped from the network Thursday following a series of anti-Israel remarks.

“Calling out the oppressive policies in Israel, advocating for Palestinians to be respected, and for Israelis and Palestinians alike to have peace and freedom is not antisemitic,” Rashida Tlaib said. “CNN, we all have a right to speak up about injustice any and everywhere. @marclamonthill”:

CNN announced that Hill was no longer a contracted contributor with the network Thursday following backlash to his comments about Israel made at the United Nations this week. He said that he wanted a “free Palestine from the river to the sea,” a statement that was interpreted by many to mean the destruction of Israel.

Hill also defended the use of violence by Palestinians, saying:

If we are standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people, we must recognize the right of an occupied people to defend itself. We must prioritize peace. But we must not romanticize or fetishize it. We must advocate and promote nonviolence at every opportunity, but we cannot endorse a narrow politics of respectability that shames Palestinians for resisting, for refusing to do nothing in the fact of state violence and ethnic cleansing

Following the backlash, CNN told Mediaite Thursday, “Marc Lamont Hill is no longer under contract with CNN.” However, the network did not specifically condemn the anti-Semitic statements.

Tlaib wasn’t the only person who defended Hill. A number of left-wing activists and some media figures such as Shaun King, W. Kamau Bell, and Glenn Greenwald tweeted in support of Hill.