Palestinians in West Bank Celebrate As Michigan's Rashida Tlaib Elected to Congress

Jason Lemon, Newsweek

Salem Barahmeh image from linkedin

Excerpt:

Palestinians in the West Bank cheered on Wednesday morning as they awoke to the news that Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat, had been elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Representing Michigan’s 13th congressional district, encompassing southwest Detroit and its western suburbs to the city of Dearborn, Tlaib, 42, made history, along with Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar, as they become the first Muslim women elected to Congress. Tlaib is also the first Palestinian-American woman elected to the legislative body. Both also ran on progressive Democrat platforms.

She has become “a source of pride for Palestine and the entire Arab and Muslim world," Tlaib’s uncle Bassam Tlaib told Reuters in the small Palestinian village of Beit Ur Al-Fauqa.

Salem Barahmeh, executive director of the Ramallah-based Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy [JB emphasis], said, “Tlaib's election is seen as a glimmer of hope in a very dark chapter in the Palestinian people's history.” But Barahmeh also cautioned that “change is incremental, and Palestinians in Palestine are intimately aware of that.” ...