(JNS) Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) accused Israel of being “racist” for not distributing coronavirus vaccines to the Palestinian territories, despite the fact that the West Bank is under the control of the Palestinian Authority, and the Gaza Strip is run by the U.S.-designated terrorist organization Hamas.

“I think it’s really important to understand Israel is a racist state and that they would deny Palestinians, like my grandmother, access to a vaccine, that they don’t believe that she’s an equal human being that deserves to live, deserves to be able to be protected by this global pandemic,” Tlaib told Democracy Now in an interview on Tuesday. “And it’s really hard to watch as this apartheid state continues to deny their own neighbors, the people that breathe the same air they breathe, that live in the same communities.”