US: Democrat Rashida Tlaib to take Congress oath in Palestinian gown in January

Washington, Dec 19: At a time when the Donald Trump Administration in the US has made its stand open on backing Israel over Palestine, Michigan's Representative-elect Rashida Tlaib is set to take oath of office on January 3 wearing a traditional Palestinian thobe, made by her mother.

Forty-two-year-old Tlaib, a Democrat who won the mid-term elections held in November and is the first Palestinian-American woman to serve in the House of Representatives, said her mother had given her the dress to wear before the primary was held. Tlaib had told her mother that she would have to win first to which her mother said she already had, Detroit Free Press reported. Tlaib's parents are from the West Bank village of Beit Ur al-Foqa, near Ramallah.

"She's a proud Palestinian woman and (she wants to see) her daughter wear something that I don't usually wear," Tlaib, who as a lawyer, civic activist and former state representative, was quoted as saying. "I haven't worn one in years. Palestinian thobes are very much your mother's dress."

Tlaib is one of the first two Muslim women who have been elected to the US Congress, the other being Ilhan Omar, a Somali American who is the Representative-elect from Minnesota and will also become the first US lawmaker to wear a hijab.