Democrats Drop Resolution to Censure Rep. Who Compared Palestinians to Nazis

One day after 22 House Democrats voted alongside Republicans to censure Representative Rashida Tlaib for voicing support for a cease-fire in Gaza, the blue party also decided to pull its own censure resolution against Florida Representative Brian Mast, who compared “Palestinian civilians” to “Nazi civilians.”

Mast received blowback for comments he made on the House floor last Wednesday, saying he would “encourage the other side to not so lightly throw around the idea of ‘innocent Palestinian civilians,’ as is frequently said. I don’t think we would so lightly throw around the term ‘innocent Nazi civilians’ during World War II.”

“There is not this far stretch to say there are very few innocent Palestinian civilians,” Mast said.

That was enough for Representative Sara Jacobs to put Mast in the hot seat, drafting her own censure resolution against the Florida congressman on Monday.

Two days later, however, a Democratic aide familiar with the legislation told The Hill that the legislation has been dropped for now. The source added that Jacobs is still working with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on what the timing on the bill should be.

Meanwhile, nearly two dozen Democrats voted with Republicans to censure Rashida Tlaib in a late-night vote on Tuesday.

In the month since Hamas militants killed 1,400 Israeli civilians in the October 7 massacre, more than 10,000 Palestinian lives have been lost in the conflict, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

The Biden administration has urged the Israeli government to avoid civilian casualties but has so far rejected calls for a cease-fire in the region. Meanwhile, the White House has also called for emergency aid to Israel as part of a $105 billion national security package that includes military and humanitarian assistance to U.S. allies around the world, including Ukraine and Taiwan.

Those decisions have decimated Biden’s popularity among Arab American voters, with support plummeting from 59 percent to 17 percent since the presidential election, according to a poll by the Arab American Institute.

“Something horrible is happening to these people, and this administration is turning a blind eye to it,” James Zogby, the group’s president, told Democracy Now! “There are going to be electoral consequences.”