A Palestinian professor says that newly-elected Illinois Congresswoman Marie Newman promised him a job but backed out of a signed contract after he criticized her positions on Israel. Iymen Chehade has filed a breach of contract lawsuit and a national-origin discrimination claim against the congresswoman. Newman’s campaign dismissed the accusations as “fallacious.”
A former Bernie Sanders supporter, Newman, 57, is regarded as very progressive in the House, including on racial justice issues. She is one of the sponsors of the landmark legislation introduced this week to keep U.S. aid to Israel from being used to detain Palestinian children or demolish houses.
Newman first ran for the seat in the suburban Chicago district in 2018, seeking to oust a conservative Democrat and House veteran, Dan Lipinski, who was reflexively pro-Israel and one of AIPAC’s favorite Democrats. She lost the Democratic primary that spring by a narrow margin, about 51-49.
The district has a high number of Palestinian-Americans, with Al Jazeera reporting that 110,000 Arab-Americans live in Illinois 3, one of the highest concentrations in the country.
As Newman prepared to run again in 2020, so did Iymen Chehade, a history professor, activist, and artist (with the Uprising Theater, a social justice theater company that prioritizes Palestinian playwrights and works as well as the struggles of other marginalized communities). Two candidates on the left would split the vote, and since Chehade’s main goal was to oust an anti-Palestinian politician in Lipinski, he agreed in late 2018 to bow out.
Chehade did so only after what he says were “numerous” meetings with Newman in which she agreed “to employ me in prominent legislative positions which had the potential to impact her foreign policy legislation.”
“In December of 2018, we memorialized that agreement in an employment contract. We agreed that should she win in 2020, I was to become foreign policy adviser and either legislative director or district director,” he told Mondoweiss. “I turned down Newman’s offer to work on her campaign but agreed to advise her as needed.”
In turn, Chehade agreed to stand up for Newman in the Palestinian community, where he says support for her was “lukewarm” given her support from the the liberal Zionist organization JStreet.
He shared that contract, whose last page bears his signature and a signature he says is Newman’s.
Chehade worked with Newman on “a powerful statement in support of Palestinian rights.” The two went back and forth on the statement, and though Newman made such compromises as only supporting the right to boycott, and not supporting BDS, Chehade agreed to present the statement to members of the community despite its shortcomings, he says, so as to open the door “for future candidates to take a strong stance on Palestine, especially if she won…[and] break the political phalanx that the Zionist lobby had.”
Ultimately though Chehade was very disappointed. The Palestine Statement on Newman’s website deleted any reference to the possibility of a single state solution, which he says they agreed on; deleted reference to UN General Assembly Resolution 194 on the right of return and replaced it with a vague reference to the return of refugees; and recognized Israel as a “democratic and Jewish” state.
Chehade told Newman that such language represented hate speech to Palestinians, as it negates the large minority of citizens of Israel who are Palestinian, let alone the rights of Palestinians under occupation and Palestinian refugees.
“As I told Newman, to say Israel is a Jewish state is tantamount to saying America is a white state or a Christian state.” She ultimately removed the Jewish state clause from the Palestine Statement on her website.
Then in March 2020, Newman beat Lipinski in the Democratic primary, by three points, assuring that she would go to Congress.
Soon after that, Chehade says Newman informed him “that she would not honor the employment contract we signed,” and after she was sworn into office this year, he filed a breach of contract lawsuit in federal court and a national-origin discrimination claim with the Office of Congressional Worker Rights (OCWR). Both cases are pending.
Chehade is pursuing the case because he wants Palestinian rights to be part of the progressive Democratic agenda.
“Newman’s approach stands in stark contrast to her public statements in support of marginalized groups in the United States, such as this statement on the topic of racial equity,” he said in an email. “Newman was in a unique position to take a human-rights-based approach to the conflict; she was running in a district with a huge Palestinian constituency and running at a time when progressive congressional representatives are increasingly finding the courage to depart from the DNC position. Instead, she issued a statement which attempted to frame the conflict as if there is symmetry between the Palestinians and their Zionist oppressors and incorporates this idea into an otherwise progressive platform. Israel is thus relieved of its egregious human rights violations and is presented as a country in a conflict with the equally responsible Palestinians.”
He adds,“I find it particularly objectionable that someone who campaigned as a progressive not only took a public position which negated the basic human rights of the Palestinian people but then retaliated against me when I objected to her doing so.”
Newman’s office said the suit is frivolous and a waste of time. “Marie Newman clearly communicated to Mr. Chehade well before her election to Congress that he would not be employed by her office,” a spokesperson for Newman’s campaign told Mondoweiss over email. “This decision was based upon interactions that Mr. Chehade had with Ms. Newman and others after their initial employment discussions. While these reasons have been communicated to Mr. Chehade, we are deeply disappointed by his continued fallacious accusations. We believe that this is a frivolous lawsuit and, frankly, a waste of time. We look forward to the matter being addressed in court and, until then, we will not be commenting further.”
Newman is one of the sponsors on a historic piece of legislation introduced last week, which would prohibit U.S. funding for Israeli home demolitions and detention of Palestinian children.
Iymen Chehade acknowledged that the legislation is a step forward in changing the American discussion of Palestine, but said Newman’s stance is not a courageous one. He says she’s trying to satisfy both the large Palestinian American constituency in her district and the progressive movement more broadly, but maintain the support of liberal Zionist groups such as J Street. And he says the bill provides that opportunity with no political risk for her.
“The Palestinians have been so dehumanized that any gesture at this point is deemed a victory,” he told Mondoweiss. “The progressive movement, which Newman considers herself a part of, can say that she is one of the good guys on Palestine, and she does all this with the permission of J Street, an organization which has signed on to this bill (because the bill does not call on conditioning U.S. assistance to Israel for violations) but an organization which nonetheless views Palestinian children and Jewish children living together as equal citizens in the historic geographical borders of Palestine as a threat to Israel.”
“She [Marie Newman] is one of the sponsors of the landmark legislation introduced this week to keep U.S. aid to Israel from being used to detain Palestinian children or demolish houses…”
On a similar topic Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren advocated for restrictions on U.S. aid to Israel at a recent J Street conference –
https://www.timesofisrael.com/sens-sanders-warren-call-for-restricting-us-aid-to-israel-at-j-street-confab/
Prominent progressive senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren both used their Monday addresses at the J Street lobby’s national conference to call for regulating US aid to Israel, asserting that such assistance should not be allowed to bankroll Israeli policies in the West Bank that damage prospects for a two-state solution.
Predictable. In fact, obvious.
It seems that many of the local Palestinians were smarter than him and saw the blindingly evident: “Chehade agreed to stand up for Newman in the Palestinian community, where he says support for her was “lukewarm” given her support from the the liberal Zionist organization JStreet.[…] A former Bernie Sanders supporter, Newman…” So the Palestinians of Illinois had learnt more from history than the history professor. Perhaps they’ll know better, next time, than to vote for anyone from either wing of the Zionist War Party, especially if supported by any kind of Zionists.
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https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/4/21/the-jerusalem-declaration-on-antisemitism-is-an-orientalist-text
“The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism is an orientalist text”
“The JDA fails to produce true opposition to the core problem of the IHRA definition: the silencing and erasure of Palestine & Palestinians” Al Jazeera, April 21/21, by Mark Muhannad Ayyash
EXCERPT:
“In a 2000 interview for the Israeli daily Haaretz, journalist Ari Shavit asks Palestinian literary theorist & anti-colonial writer Edward Said whether he thinks ‘the idea of a Jewish state is flawed’.
“In response, Said asks his own questions about the notions of ‘Jewishness’ & ‘who is a Jew’ in this state. Shavit abruptly stops that line of thinking, stating ‘But that’s an internal Jewish question. The question for you is whether the Jews are a people who have a right to a state of their own?’
“Shavit’s argument asserts that the very foundation of the Jewish state as a state for Jews is a matter only for Jews to debate & critically discuss. The only point of entry into this discussion for non-Jews, like Said, is to accept the non-negotiability of that foundation: namely, that Jews have the right to their own Jewish state. What this argument omits is that this state was established on a land that was already inhabited by Palestinians. This argument, & the omission of Palestine and Palestinian life from it, precedes Shavit by decades, & 21 years later, it persists.
“Today, we are in the midst of a wave of definitions of antisemitism that are determined to protect the validity of the idea of the Jewish state from any serious critique coming from anti-Zionist Jews (whose Jewishness is increasingly questioned) & non-Jews, foremost among the latter being Palestinians like Said.
“The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (JDA) illustrates this point. This document situates itself as the liberal replacement to the conservative International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism. Like the IHRA definition, the JDA sets for itself the task of determining which kinds of anti-Zionist critiques & views constitute antisemitism & which do not. As one of its signatories, Yair Wallach, recently put it, ”the JDA pays special attention to antisemitism in anti-Zionist veneer.’ (cont’d)
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I have been absent from this site for circa 20 months and I notice a distinct difference in the level of policing of comments.
I am prompted to ask if the ADL or perhaps Shin Beth are supplying moderators .????.
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“As a liberal document, the JDA shows tolerance for the diversity of views and perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian question. But like all liberal documents that have been produced in the thick of a colonial or settler colonial moment, this document keeps intact the colonial contract whereby the colonial masters retain the position of privilege and supremacy in voice and status over the colonized.
“The JDA is an orientalist text that fails to produce true opposition to the core problem of the IHRA definition: the silencing and erasure of Palestine and Palestinians.”