Dear Rabbi Bachman,
While I share your admiration for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s recent victory in New York’s 14th Congressional District, I am dismayed by the heavy-handed way you chose to convey your congratulations. I’m referring to your open letter to her (Jewish Journal, 7/4/18) in which you expressed your concern that her public statements about Israel and Palestine indicated a “less than nuanced perspective” and invited her to join you on a tour of the region.
While you did not identify which of her public statements you were referring to, I can only assume you meant this recent tweet, which she posted in response to Israel’s violent military response to Palestinian protesters in Gaza:
This is a massacre. I hope my peers have the moral courage to call it such. No state or entity is absolved of mass shootings of protesters. There is no justification. Palestinian people deserve basic human dignity, as anyone else. Democrats can’t be silent about this anymore.
In a subsequent interview with the Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald, Ocasio-Cortez clarified the motivation behind her statement:
I think I was primarily compelled (to speak out) on moral grounds because I could only imagine if 60 people were shot and killed in Ferguson or if 60 people were shot and killed in the West Virginia teachers’ strikes. The idea that we are not supposed to talk about people dying when they are engaging in political expression just really moved me.
Again, I can only assume these were comments to which you referred. Her tweet was quoted and commented upon extensively in the Jewish press. As far as I can tell, she has made no other public statements on this issue,
Was it her use of the word “massacre” that bothered you? It is admittedly a strong word, but I’m not sure it is inappropriate under the circumstances. Since the weekly protests began in late March, the Israeli military has responded by shooting live ammunition directly into crowds of largely nonviolent protesters nearly 1,000 meters away. To date, over 140 Palestinians have been killed and more than 15,000 have been injured. Almost all casualties have been civilians, of whom at least 1,200 were children treated in hospitals.
Amnesty International has called these killings “murderous,” calling upon “governments worldwide to impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel following the country’s disproportionate response.” According to AI’s report:
“In most of the fatal cases…victims were shot in the upper body, including the head and the chest, some from behind. Eyewitness testimonies, video and photographic evidence suggest that many were deliberately killed or injured while posing no immediate threat to the Israeli soldiers.”
For its part, the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem has referred to Israel’s actions as “criminal” and has publicly called upon soldiers to refuse to open fire on demonstrators in Gaza. Noting that it is a criminal offense to obey patently illegal orders, B’Tselem stated that “as long as soldiers in the field continue to receive orders to use live fire against unarmed civilians, they are duty-bound to refuse to comply.”
Given the findings and public statements of these respected human right organizations, I’m curious what in Ocasio-Cortez’s words you found to be “less than nuanced.” I’m sure you would agree that state violence directed at unarmed protesters should be called out as such. I was struck that in your letter you chose not to identify who actually did the killing and who was actually killed in Gaza, describing the events passively as “recent violence and tragic deaths.” To my mind, this is the kind of “nuance” that ultimately drains all moral context from the facts on the ground.
I’m also troubled that you chose not to respond to her actual words, opting instead to give her a tutorial on the history of Zionism, the Jewish people’s historic connection to the land of Israel and the importance of a two-state solution. You are certainly welcome to your opinions, but I don’t understand what they have to do with her comments or why, under the circumstances, you felt she should take them to heart.
As a public figure, Ocasio-Cortez responded to clear human rights abuses in a forthright and courageous manner. She deserved much more than a condescending lecture and a personal invitation to your own “nuanced” tour of Israel/Palestine.
A version of this post was originally published on Rabbi Brant’s blog on July 10, 2018.
“Come into my parlor”, said the spider to the fly.
Rabbi Bachman should discuss the “nuances” of Zionist barbarity with Alexandria in a public forum, on C-SPAN. We can safely predict he will NOT do that. That’s because he is not interested in an HONEST discussion. That’s because he has ulterior motives.
Alexandria should absolutely NOT go to Israel. It’s a kill zone. Remember Raza Al Najar. Remember Yitzhak Rabin. Alexandria should be cautious for her safety.
RABBI BRANT ROSEN- (From Rabbi Bachman’s open letter)- “I write to you as a progressive and a Zionist.”
First of all the obvious – there is no such thing as a progressive Zionist. Rabbi Bachman is a Zionist apologist attempting to put Ocasio-Cortez on warning that concern for Palestinian human rights and criticism of Israel is unacceptable. Secondly, Ocasio-Cortez victory is being over-hyped. She is a youthful Bernie Sanders type sheep dog designed to say nice things and lure “liberals” back into the Democratic Party. A party, I might add, which has fully embraced neocon warmongering and empire. A relevant quote and link to an article which discusses Ocasio-Cortez and the Democrats.
“But perhaps most important in any discussion of the Democratic Party are their ties to the CIA.
Patrick Martin writes…
“An extraordinary number of former intelligence and military operatives from the CIA, Pentagon, National Security Council and State Department are seeking nomination as Democratic candidates for Congress in the 2018 midterm elections. The potential influx of military-intelligence personnel into the legislature has no precedent in US political history. If the Democrats capture a majority in the House of Representatives on November 6, as widely predicted, candidates drawn from the military-intelligence apparatus will comprise as many as half of the new Democratic members of Congress.”
This is interesting for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that the DNC does nothing to hide this but rather sees it a sure fire vote getter.” (John Steppling) https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/11/the-wisdom-of-serpents/
Anyone here care to guess how long before she pulls an Obama and backtracks on all that?
Rabbi here, Rabbi there,
Weren’t Men of the Cloth supposed to keep to religion –not politics?
Mr. Bachman’s open letter is more of the same old Jewish supremacist (Zionist) propaganda:
– the religion-based identity of Jewish grants to the citizens of homelands all over the world who have chosen to embrace it the right to a religion-supremacist “Jewish State” in as much as possible of Palestine;
– justice, accountability and equality need not apply.