As we reported last week Congressman Steve Israel of Long Island NY is in Israel on a neverending trip, with six other Congresspeople, on the dime of the Israel lobby group AIPAC (thru its arm, American Israel Education Foundation); and last week he got testy about angry criticism for the junket.
This tweet from Israel in Israel yesterday is not testy:
Honored to spend time today with a world hero, @PresidentPeres pic.twitter.com/qtQrCiaP1n
— Steve Israel (@RepSteveIsrael) August 7, 2014
But this one is. The congressman visited an Israeli clinic, and had this to say:
At Ziv Med. Ctr, which treats Syrians fleeing civil war. Oh, & it’s in Israel, accused by some of “war crimes.”
Thanks to Scott Roth, who writes: “Come on man. Is that an argument?” Yes, many folks have accused Israel of war crimes, including Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch. And yesterday David Rothkopf of Foreign Policy wrote, “there is no denying that the Israeli tactics… in this war do not pass the most basic tests available by which to assess them, those of morality, proportionality, and effectiveness.” Immoral and disproportional: sounds like a war crime.
According to NY Daily News the congressional delegation includes
Apparently to get the Palestinian perspective, they also met with Salam Fayyad. I can only imagine what Fayyad told them about Gaza.
I found some more information on Bill Pascrell, a New Jersey Democrat. He has posted some photos on his Facebook page. And a local newspaper writes:
Incredibly Bill Pascrell represents Paterson with its large Arab and Muslim population.
Suzanne Bonamici represents Beaverton, just west of my district. She replaced “Krazy” David Wu who suffered some kind of mental breakdown during his last term.
From Wikipedia:
Judge Simon is the nephew of playwright Neil Simon, educated at UCLA and Harvard, and was appointed by Obama. Don’t know if they are Zionists, but I think it’s highly likely.
Sigh. Why don’t these tools just make aliyah while on their junket? Then they could just serve in the Knesset. Oh yeah, because they can best serve Israel by pretending to give a shit about serving their American constituents.
“Incredibly Bill Pascrell represents Paterson with its large Arab and Muslim population.” Really ! VOTE HIM OUT! Steve Israel ? VOTE HIM OUT ! Enough with this BS. You want to pander to Israel? Not a problem, we will help you. Go. And don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
I was struck by the photo of the med center used to “treat Syrians” that showed a completely empty room.
Apparently Israel ran out of Syrians to treat, or, given Israel’s PR expertise, they weren’t deemed photogenic, or something (e.g. they don’t actually treat any Syrians there).