In a defi­ant state­ment released the morn­ing of August 16, Rep. Rashi­da Tlaib (D‑Mich.) declared that she would not trav­el to Israel under ​“oppres­sive con­di­tions meant to humil­i­ate me.” Her remarks came after a tur­bu­lent 24 hours that began Thurs­day when Pres­i­dent Trump took the unprece­dent­ed step of call­ing on Israel to bar Tlaib and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D‑Minn.) — the only two Mus­lim women in Con­gress — from entry.

For a brief moment, others saw some of the really torturous decisions Palestinians are forced to make on a daily basis about things everyone else takes for granted.

The two had been plan­ning an alter­na­tive to the annu­al right-wing AIPAC-spon­sored trip for con­gress­peo­ple, which typ­i­cal­ly occurs dur­ing the first August recess. Tlaib and Omar intend­ed to lead a del­e­ga­tion aimed at human­iz­ing Pales­tini­ans, exam­in­ing issues like pover­ty and edu­ca­tion, and prob­ing Israel’s child deten­tion poli­cies. Tlaib — who is Pales­tin­ian-Amer­i­can and a demo­c­ra­t­ic social­ist — was also going to vis­it fam­i­ly mem­bers, includ­ing her 90-year-old grandmother.

But in response to Trump’s demand, Israel agreed Thurs­day to deny the law­mak­ers entry. Fol­low­ing crit­i­cism, how­ev­er, Israel walked back this deci­sion, say­ing Tlaib would be giv­en ​“human­i­tar­i­an” per­mis­sion to vis­it her grand­moth­er, but only on the con­di­tion that she agreed not to, in her words, ​“pro­mote boy­cotts against Israel” dur­ing her trip. This isn’t con­fined to Tlaib: Israel sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly denies entry based on people’s polit­i­cal posi­tions, pass­ing a law in 2017 deny­ing entry to pro­po­nents of the Pales­tin­ian-led Boy­cott, Divest­ment and Sanc­tions (BDS) move­ment.

At first, Tlaib agreed to these con­di­tions. But she reversed course and announced Fri­day morn­ing she will not go, declar­ing, ​“The Israeli gov­ern­ment used my love and desire to see my grand­moth­er to silence me and made my abil­i­ty to do so con­tin­gent upon my sign­ing a let­ter — reflect­ing just how unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic and afraid they are of the truth my trip would reveal about what is hap­pen­ing in the State of Israel and to Pales­tini­ans liv­ing under occu­pa­tion with Unit­ed States support.”

In These Times spoke with Yousef Munayy­er, a Pales­tin­ian-Amer­i­can writer and activist, and the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the U.S. Cam­paign for Pales­tin­ian Rights, about the sig­nif­i­cance of Tlaib’s state­ment, and what it reveals about wide­spread injus­tices against Pales­tini­ans per­pe­trat­ed far from pub­lic scruti­ny. ​“Peo­ple are get­ting a tiny win­dow into the real­i­ty,” he says. ​“The real­i­ty is so much worse than what peo­ple have been exposed to in wit­ness­ing what Tlaib has had to wres­tle with.”

Sarah Lazare: First, can I get your gut response to Rep. Rashi­da Tlaib’s state­ment today that she will not go to Israel ​“under these oppres­sive con­di­tions meant to humil­i­ate me”?

Yousef Munayy­er: As a Pales­tin­ian, I think that what I felt is a feel­ing that many Pales­tini­ans have: the feel­ing of being heard and being seen. For a brief moment, oth­ers saw some of the real­ly tor­tur­ous deci­sions Pales­tini­ans are forced to make on a dai­ly basis about things every­one else takes for grant­ed. Rep. Rashi­da Tlaib want­ed to go on this trip, to car­ry out her oblig­a­tions as a mem­ber of Con­gress, and along with Rep. Omar, inform her­self of the ways in which U.S. pol­i­cy is impact­ing Pales­tini­ans on the ground. She also want­ed to vis­it her home­land, the home­land of her fam­i­ly, and vis­it fam­i­ly mem­bers. Just to do so, she was forced to make a com­mit­ment to not be who she real­ly is — to give up a part of her­self, part of her rights, and com­mit to silence.

As I was watch­ing this take place, and read­ing her state­ment, the only thing I could think about is how many Pales­tini­ans have had to make these cal­cu­la­tions on a dai­ly basis in so many dif­fer­ent ways. It affects Pales­tini­ans inside of Pales­tine and out. Tlaib is from Detroit, and her fam­i­ly is from Pales­tine. Just to exer­cise her right to spend time with her fam­i­ly, she had to give up part of her human­i­ty. Pales­tini­ans inside and out­side of Pales­tine are always wrestling with these kinds of tradeoffs.

Pales­tini­ans are often faced with very dif­fi­cult ques­tions: Do I sub­ject myself to inter­ro­ga­tion at a check­point if it means I’ll be able to make it to a hos­pi­tal appoint­ment to get can­cer treat­ment? Do I post on social media about what I think about the sit­u­a­tion if it might mean nev­er being able to see my fam­i­ly again? Do I stand back as Israeli sol­diers detain my 5‑year-old child if it means push­ing back will leave them an orphan? These are the kinds of deci­sions Pales­tini­ans have to wres­tle with every day. You’re asked to com­pro­mise parts of your human­i­ty to have access to oth­er parts.

What was so pow­er­ful about Tlaib’s deci­sion, as dif­fi­cult as I’m sure it was, is that it allowed the Amer­i­can pub­lic for the first time to have a lit­tle win­dow into the dai­ly real­i­ties of Pales­tini­ans and the way they face these tor­tur­ous ques­tions as full human beings. I think that’s why the Israelis are so con­cerned about her. She is forc­ing peo­ple to think about Pales­tini­ans as full human beings for the first time in spaces like Con­gress, where that has always been taboo and a non­starter. The unfor­tu­nate real­i­ty is that that is revolutionary.

When you are liv­ing out­side of Pales­tine, and your fam­i­ly is there, you have to take into cal­cu­la­tion things most peo­ple will nev­er have to think about. You have to think about whether the things you say or the posi­tions you take or the argu­ments you make with peo­ple in a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent coun­try can have reper­cus­sions for your fam­i­ly thou­sands of miles away. Those are real things peo­ple in dias­po­ra com­mu­ni­ties wres­tle with all the time. When you’re liv­ing in a sit­u­a­tion where you don’t have free­dom or self-deter­mi­na­tion and you are extreme­ly vul­ner­a­ble, that becomes an added vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. It’s a very heavy bur­den peo­ple in the dias­po­ra have.

Sarah: Can you talk about the Demo­c­ra­t­ic establishment’s response to the events over the last few days? It’s seemed to me that many of the state­ments from Demo­c­ra­t­ic cen­trists have been tepid, super­fi­cial­ly crit­i­ciz­ing Netanyahu’s deci­sion, but going out of their way to reaf­firm their over­all sup­port for Israel. Nan­cy Pelosi’s state­ment on August 15 that ​“Israel’s denial of entry to Con­gress­women Tlaib and Omar is a sign of weak­ness, and beneath the dig­ni­ty of the great State of Israel” seems to be an exam­ple of this.

Yousef: It is very clear the Demo­c­ra­t­ic lead­er­ship feels they were betrayed and thrown under the bus by the Israeli gov­ern­ment. Demor­at­ic lead­ers knew these trips are annu­al events. AIPAC always takes annu­al events. They knew there were mem­bers of Con­gress express­ing real­ly point­ed crit­i­cism of the U.S.- Israel rela­tion­ship, and of the impact of groups like AIPAC. They were com­ing into this sum­mer know­ing this moment was going to poten­tial­ly be a flash­point. They have been for the past sev­er­al months goad­ed into one cat­a­stro­phe after anoth­er by right-wing forces — whether it’s Repub­li­cans in Con­gress, the pres­i­dent of the U.S., or oth­er mouth­pieces on the right that are not nec­es­sar­i­ly in gov­ern­ment — to take action and iso­late and mar­gin­al­ize their own cau­cus mem­bers for not car­ry­ing the ortho­doxy on U.S. pol­i­cy towards Israel. What they were hop­ing to do in this moment is to try to paper over what has become an unde­ni­able par­ti­san divide that is no longer just dis­cernible in pub­lic opin­ion polling but also begin­ning to man­i­fest itself in votes and actions and words of mem­bers of Congress.

What the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty lead­er­ship real­ly want­ed to have hap­pen was for these trips to project bipar­ti­san sup­port for Israel. To make that hap­pen, they need­ed assur­ances from the Israeli gov­ern­ment, which they got, that Tlaib and Omar would not be denied entry on the lat­er del­e­ga­tion, a sce­nario which would be a polit­i­cal night­mare. They got those assur­ances before they went, and they went on the basis this was not going to blow up on their face.

They did the whole AIPAC shuf­fle: took pic­tures with Israeli mil­i­tary and applaud­ed Netanyahu. Rep. Ste­ny Hoy­er (D‑Md.) was even asked by the Israeli media whether he agreed with Beto O’Rourke’s char­ac­ter­i­za­tions of Netanyahu as racist, and he said, ​‘I don’t think he’s a racist. Peri­od. No.’ They did all of this to try to project bipar­ti­san­ship, and as soon as they got back to the U.S. they got dou­ble crossed. And the entire sto­ry became about the exact issue they want­ed to pre­tend didn’t exist. You saw the response yes­ter­day from Democ­rats say­ing this was wrong. The big take­away mes­sage, which has been said over and over dur­ing the years — the Israelis have put all of their eggs in the bas­ket of Repub­li­cans and white evan­gel­i­cals. The Demo­c­ra­t­ic lead­er­ship has to wres­tle with what that means.

Sarah: But it seems that, in issu­ing crit­i­cisms, many Democ­rats at the same time were try­ing to prove their feal­ty to Israel. For exam­ple, Joe Biden tweet­ed on August 15, ​“I have always been a stal­wart sup­port­er of Israel — a vital part­ner that shares our demo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues. No democ­ra­cy should deny entry to vis­i­tors based on the con­tent of their ideas — even ideas they strong­ly object to.”

Yousef: That is true. There is a degree of mus­cle mem­o­ry in how peo­ple fash­ion lan­guage. But I think the big­ger pic­ture is more impor­tant. I think peo­ple are going to remem­ber from this moment that a taboo was bro­ken dur­ing this peri­od. Peo­ple took a stand they would nev­er have tak­en. There is evi­dence of a con­tin­u­ing shift.

Sarah: What else do you think will be remem­bered about this moment? What does Rashi­da Tlaib’s refusal to trav­el to Israel under humil­i­at­ing terms — even if it means not see­ing her fam­i­ly — reveal to the broad­er pub­lic about the geopol­i­tics at work?

Yousef: It’s impor­tant to con­tex­tu­al­ize this in the wave of right-wing nation­al­ist pol­i­tics on the rise in a num­ber of places in the globe. Israel is a cen­tral com­po­nent along with the forces that brought us Trump and forces that are in sup­port of eth­nic nation­al­ism and anti-immi­gra­tion in Europe, as well as right-wing forces in Brazil. Here in the U.S., the pres­i­dent has used racism and xeno­pho­bia and all forms of big­otry to pur­sue polit­i­cal pow­er and a broad­er nation­al­ist project. Don­ald Trump is not an every­day racist. He is a white suprema­cist dem­a­gogue who is using racism to pur­sue a broad nation­al­ist project that is dan­ger­ous as hell. He’s instru­men­tal­ized Israel as part of this. Israel has will­ing­ly gone along, in part because their world­view reflects the eth­no-nation­al­ist idea that is part of what Trump wants to do.

Sarah: Do you think the U.S. pub­lic is being exposed to the real­i­ty of Israel’s occu­pa­tion and apartheid policies?

Yousef: Peo­ple are get­ting a tiny win­dow into the real­i­ty. The real­i­ty is so much worse than what peo­ple have been exposed to in wit­ness­ing what Tlaib has had to wres­tle with. It is much worse than that. Now they’re able to see it through the prism of an Amer­i­can elect­ed offi­cial who hap­pens to be Pales­tin­ian American.

Sarah: Can you say more about the real­i­ties peo­ple aren’t seeing?

Yousef: It’s such a huge top­ic to dis­cuss. Pales­tini­ans expe­ri­ence this across the globe and in dif­fer­ent ways. Pales­tini­ans are liv­ing under mil­i­tary occu­pa­tion in the West Bank, includ­ing East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip, where they are ruled by a mil­i­tary sys­tem that gov­erns key choic­es in their life, and they have no say what­so­ev­er in how that can be deter­mined. Inside of Israel, you have Pales­tin­ian cit­i­zens of Israel liv­ing as sec­ond-class cit­i­zens in places where the gov­ern­ment has passed into law the idea that Jew­ish cit­i­zens are supe­ri­or — in the total­i­ty of the land, includ­ing the West Bank and Gaza. You have Pales­tini­ans liv­ing in the dias­po­ra and in refugee camps who have nev­er been able to return to their homes, nev­er been allowed to return to their fam­i­lies, some liv­ing in a state of pre­car­i­ous­ness that in some instances is worse than what Pales­tini­ans in the West Bank and Gaza face.

Tlaib’s gut-wrench­ing deci­sions gave a tiny glimpse into the vast matrix into poli­cies that are impos­ing these kinds of trade­offs on Pales­tini­ans every day of their lives.