Facing censure in the House of Representatives over her antisemitism and thinly veiled support for Hamas, the Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Ramallah) is fighting back using a strategy that Islamic spokesmen in the West have frequently favored over the years: she’s lying. This shouldn’t come as any surprise to anyone: in the book that those spokesmen and Tlaib consider to be holy, lying to infidels is specifically allowed for when one is cornered. And if anyone is cornered right now, it’s Rashida Tlaib.

CNN reported that “The House voted Tuesday to advance a resolution to censure Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib after a Democratic effort to block the measure failed, setting up an expected vote on final passage of the resolution Wednesday.” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia), who on Monday reintroduced into the House a resolution to censure her flamethrowing far-Left colleague, wrote on X that it was for Tlaib’s “antisemitism, spreading Pro-Hamas propaganda, and inciting an illegal occupation in the Capitol complex.” Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Georgia) also introduced a resolution to censure Tlaib.

In a statement on the censure resolutions, Tlaib insisted: “I have repeatedly denounced the horrific targeting and killing of civilians by Hamas and the Israeli government, and have mourned the Israeli and Palestinian lives lost.” It is important to note that this is not actually a denunciation of Hamas, which Tlaib has never denounced, but only of “the horrific targeting and killing of civilians” by both “Hamas and the Israeli government,” as if the two were equivalent when one deliberately targets civilians and puts them in harm’s way and the other takes extraordinary measures to avoid civilian casualties.

So even Tlaib’s criticism of Hamas’ actions on Oct. 7 is watered down by her absurd moral equivalence of Hamas with the Israeli government. Beyond that, however, where exactly were these instances of Tlaib repeatedly denouncing Hamas for murdering Israeli civilians? On Oct. 8, the day after Hamas murdered over 1,400 Israeli civilians in one of the bloodiest, most savage jihad massacres of modern times, Tlaib led off her statement with the same moral equivalence: “I grieve the Palestinian and Israeli lives lost yesterday, today, and every day.” Then she launched into a series of thinly veiled indictments of Israel: “I am determined as ever to fight for a just future where everyone can live in peace, without fear and with true freedom, equal rights, and human dignity. The path to that future must include lifting the blockade, ending the occupation, and dismantling the apartheid system that creates the suffocating, dehumanizing conditions that can lead to resistance.” About Hamas’ targeting of civilians she said absolutely nothing, and, in fact, didn’t even mention the jihad terror group at all.

That’s all. Tlaib didn’t post on X between Oct. 6 and Oct. 13. If she was busy repeatedly denouncing Hamas’ murder of Israeli civilians, it made no headlines and isn’t even on her own website.

So what is Tlaib doing claiming now that she has repeatedly denounced Hamas’ targeting of civilians? It’s simple: she is lying. And that lying is firmly within the bounds of what is acceptable behavior according to the Qur’an on which she was sworn in. The Islamic holy book says: “Let not the believers take unbelievers for their friends in preference to believers. Whoever does that has no connection with Allah unless you are guarding yourselves against them, taking security.” (3:28)

The fourteenth-century Islamic scholar Ibn Kathir, author of a magisterial and still influential commentary on the Qur’an, explains that the phrase “unless you are guarding yourselves against them” means that “believers who in some areas or times fear for their safety from the disbelievers” may “show friendship to the disbelievers outwardly, but never inwardly. For instance, Al-Bukhari recorded that Abu Ad-Darda said, ‘We smile in the face of some people although our hearts curse them.’ Al-Bukhari said that Al-Hasan said, ‘The Tuqyah [taqiyya] is allowed until the Day of Resurrection.” Abu Ad-Darda was a companion of Muhammad.

In the same vein, the twentieth-century Pakistani Islamic scholar and politician Syed Abul Ala Maududi wrote this about Qur’an 3:28: “This means that is lawful for a believer, helpless in the grip of the enemies of Islam and in imminent danger of severe wrong and persecution, to keep his faith concealed and to behave in such a way as to create the impression that he is on the same side as his enemies.”

Might Tlaib consider herself in the grip of the enemies of Islam and in imminent danger of severe wrong, and so considers it permissible for her to claim she opposes Hamas when in fact she favors it? Certainly. And her Democrat colleagues, since they have been propagandized into thinking that such a line of inquiry is “Islamophobic” on its face, and want to keep the Israel-hating hard Left happy, will fall into line behind her.

Article posted with permission from Robert Spencer