Madeleine Dean and Mary Gay Scanlon, the two Congresswomen representing Lower Merion and Narberth, have both called for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas War. Dean and Scanlon also voted NO on H.Res 845, which called for Censuring Representative Rashida Tlaib after “she published on social media a video containing the phrase from the river to the sea, which [according to the resolution] is widely recognized as a genocidal call to violence to destroy the state of Israel and its people to replace it with a Palestinian state extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.”
Tlaib says her use of from the river to the sea, “signifies an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate.”
Scanlon recently signed a letter circulating among members of the House that calls for “a robust bilateral ceasefire.” The letter condemns “the Hamas attacks on Israel that took place on October 7th, in which Hamas killed over 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals, and captured over 200 hostages, who were subsequently taken to Gaza.” However, the letter doesn’t call for Hamas to return any hostages at this time.
Dean has not signed “the letter,” but she did issue a statement “calling for a humanitarian pause in hostilities in Israel and Gaza in order to prioritize the health and safety of civilians.”
Unlike the letter that Scanlon signed, Dean’s statement argues that Israel has the right – the responsibility – to dismantle Hamas terrorism.
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After Dean voted NO on the Resolution to censure Tlaib on November 7, she took issue with Tlaib’s interpretation of From the River to the Sea. According to Dean, in a statement issued on November 8, “the phrase has now been co-opted by terrorist groups like Hamas to mean complete and total destruction of the Jewish state. It evokes fear for many, especially in the Jewish community.”
When questioned about what might appear to be an inconsistency between Dean’s NO vote to censure Tlaib and her unequivocal rebuke of Tlaib’s justification for invoking From the River to the Sea, Dean’s spokesperson, Timothy Mack responded by email – Congresswoman Dean has been clear: She believes the focus for this Congress at this time must be on funding the government, which could shutdown next Friday, and delivering aid to Ukraine and Israel, combined with funding for border security and Palestinian humanitarian efforts.
We’ve had endless censures introduced over the last two weeks, and Rep. Dean does not believe it is a good use of the people’s time. Rep. Dean’s statement reflects her disagreement with the use of the phrase; equally, her statement here reflects her disagreement with the rhetoric used by Rep. Mast on the House floor.
Rep. Mast’s comments also generated a censure resolution by her Democratic colleague Rep. Sara Jacobs. That censure was due to come up this week, and Rep. Dean intended to vote to table it (as she did with the resolution against Rep. Tlaib). If that motion to table had failed, she would have voted against this resolution as well. We are grateful Rep. Jacobs pulled her censure resolution, not because we agreed with Mr. Mast’s ugly remarks but because we believe our attention must be focused on funding our government and getting our allies the resources they need.
These tit for tat censure resolutions do very little to solve the many problems in this conflict or even address the rise in antisemitism and Islamophobia we have seen around our nation since the tragedy on October 7th.
Here is Rep. Dean’s tweet on Nov. 7th on the use of censure. I hope this clarifies Rep. Dean’s position. It is not a contradiction but consistent with her position on the use of censure.
As to why Dean voted to censure Republican Congressman Paul Gosar but not Tlaib, Mack wrote – In one of the rare cases of censure that Rep. Dean voted in favor of, Congress was reeling from the terrifying Jan. 6th insurrection attempt where Rep. Dean was trapped in the chamber.