By Aryeh Savir/TPS • 26 January, 2020
Israel’s Consul General in New York Dani Dayan slammed Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib after she shared a tweet in which she alleged that Israelis had kidnapped and murdered an Arab boy in Jerusalem when in fact he had tragically drowned.
Qais Abu Ramila, 7-years-old from the Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina, went missing Friday afternoon and was found dead Saturday in a water hole in what his parents confirmed was an accidental drowning.
Hundreds of Israeli volunteers participated in searches to help locate the child.
However, rumors quickly circulated that he has been kidnapped and murdered by Jewish terrorists.
PLO official Hanan Ashrawi wrote on Twitter that “the heart just shatters. The pain is unbearable. No words,” after retweeting an obscure account which claimed that Abu Ramila was “kidnapped by a Herd of violent Israeli settlers, assaulted and thrown in a water well was found this morning frozen to death in Beit Hanina after Israeli forces assaulted search teams.”
Tlaib retweeted the thread to her 890,000 followers.
Responding to Tlaib’s severe allegations, Dayan wrote that he is “always extremely cautious in criticizing US elected officials.”
“However, when an American elected official retweets an unfounded blood libel against Jewish Israelis, I cannot remain silent. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib just did.”
Tlaib subsequently removed the Tweet but failed to apologize.
Tlaib, together with Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, was listed on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s 2019 list of the “Top 10 Worst Anti-Semitic and Anti-Israel Incidents.”
Former British Labour Member of Parliament George Galloway, who was expelled from the party over anti-Semitism, tweeted that Abu Ramila has been “murdered by illegal Israeli settlers.”
The boy “has just been fished out of a well dead in Jerusalem Murdered by illegal Israeli settlers. Will anyone in power cry with his mother and father today? Will anyone check this evil rampage against the people of #Palestine? Anyone?”
The pro-Israel Sussex Friends of Israel wrote: “here is Jew-hater in chief George Galloway using the tragic death of a young Palestinian boy to stir up hate. Sadly Abu Ramilah drowned in a tragic accident but to George, it’s just another opportunity to incite his followers.”