Israel’s interior ministry said Friday it has granted a request on humanitarian grounds by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) to visit her family in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The announcement came hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his government would bar Tlaib and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.
) — the first two Muslim women elected to Congress — from entering the country.The decision by Israel's interior ministry was reported early Friday morning by the Associated Press, among others.
President Donald Trump had publicly lobbied Israeli leaders to block the lawmakers, but the move by the Israeli government nonetheless drew a largely bipartisan rebuke.
Netanyahu defended his decision in a statement, criticizing Omar and Tlaib as “leading activists in promoting the legislation of boycotts against Israel in the American Congress,” and characterizing their planned trip to Israel as “a visit whose sole objective is to strengthen the boycott against us and deny Israel’s legitimacy.”
Netanyahu also said a “humanitarian request” by Tlaib would be accepted “on the condition that she pledges not to promote boycotts against Israel during her visit.”
Tlaib, a Palestinian-American, is expected to see her 90-year-old grandmother in the West Bank. “She deserves to live in peace & with human dignity. I am who I am because of her,” Tlaib
Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine