People outside New York may not be aware of the big news in the city this week: City Council leaders removed a council member from its immigration committee because he had made anti-Palestinian comments. It is important news because anti-Palestinian racism is finally moving the needle in U.S. politics, and in the biggest Jewish city no less, where expressions of devotion to Israel by politicians are the coin of the realm.
Two days ago, Council member Kalman Yeger, who represents an Orthodox Jewish section of Brooklyn, lost his seat after repeatedly asserting that Palestinians and Palestine don’t exist.
City Council Speaker Corey Johnson demoted Yeger, saying (per the Brooklyn Daily Eagle) the Immigration Committee “is supposed to welcome and support immigrants in our city.”
Just last week Mayor Bill de Blasio had happily teamed up with Yeger at the AIPAC conference– and is under pressure from the progressive base over his fawning to the Israel lobby group. But this week Yeger is roadkill. De Blasio:
Certainly the Immigration Committee is nowhere for someone who can say the things that he said… We have in this city a huge Muslim community, a huge Palestinian committee as well and it’s important for people to understand that everyone is valued.
Palestinian-American leader Linda Sarsour responded with gratitude and recognition of the moment:
I salute
@NYCSpeakerCoJo [Corey Johnson] for standing up against hate and bigotry. Thank you for removing Kalman Yeger off the immigration committee. Palestinians feel seen and heard. This is not your first time doing what’s right and I know it won’t be your last.
This goes back a year. In March 2018, Yeger responded to news that Palestinian politician Ahmad Tibi hopes one day to lead a democratic, binational state:
More evidence that the ultimate goal of the so-called “Palestinians” is the destruction of the Jewish state and its people. And THAT’S why there will never be peace.
Zainab Iqbal, a reporter at Bklyner, began documenting Yeger’s assertions, and in response, Yeger doubled down last week, on March 27:
Palestine does not exist.
There, I said it again.
Also, Congresswoman Omar is an antisemite. Said that too…
The tweet prompted charges of Islamophobia and bigotry. Corey Johnson called on Yeger to apologize. De Blasio’s first blast at Yeger sought to balance his sympathies:
A two-state solution is the best hope for peace. I challenge anyone who thinks the State of Israel shouldn’t exist. But the same goes for anyone who would deny Palestinians a home.
Yeger held a press conference last Friday where he merely repeated himself and declined to apologize.
“There is no state by that name; there is no place by that name.”
There were protests and counter-protests outside Yeger’s Brooklyn office, and “a diverse coalition of Palestinian, Jewish, immigrant and civil rights groups announced it was planning a protest on City Hall’s steps later this week,” the New York Times reported.
Yeger was demoted on Monday, April 1. The Times’s coverage featured comments from Linda Sarsour.
“This sends a wider message that saying anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian things comes with consequences,” Ms. Sarsour said.
It also quoted former assemblyman Dov Hikind on the meaning of the moment: “Progressive Democrats, liberals, have unfortunately moved away from the kind of support for Israel that we are used to.”
Yeger backed down somewhat in the end:
I respect the Speaker’s right to run the Council as he sees fit. It’s unfortunate that political correctness takes precedence over objective fact. Of course, there are Palestinians. However, the fact remains there is no Palestinian state.
In sum, this incident was a wakeup call to the Democratic Party nationwide, that the profound political shifts that the left is generating on a host of issues, from sexual harassment to economic inequity, will include Palestine at last. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have said that the Democratic Party will always support Israel. The news from New York is that the Dems are going to have to respect the base’s beliefs on Palestinian human rights.
At a time when Israel is trending further and further right, a political breakup seems more and more inevitable; and the day is not far off when progressive Dems will call for democracy from river to sea.
In the photo that is not a Torah scroll, but a scroll of the Megillah or the book of Esther.
The statehood of Palestine is not the real issue here, but a type of mutual recognition of the Palestinian people, which the assemblyman is denying.
“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” can be heard as anti Jewish rhetoric, “from the river to the sea, everyone will be free,” is a much clearer slogan. Which one do you favor?
From the river to the sea there will be democracy is parallel to the second slogan.
The free crossing of land between Gaza and Jerusalem and between Nablus and Tel Aviv is something to aspire to. It is not near and which slogan will bring it closer?
Calling Ilhan Omar an antisemite, though i myself have withdrawn such an equation and instead placed a question mark there next to the A/S appelation instead, is by no means Islamophobic. Stating that Ilhan Omar shows us that we are too lax in our immigration policy is Islamophobic. Wildly accusing anyone who views Ilhan Omar as an opponent as an Islamophobe is dangerous nonsense and b.s. It is tactics and tactics should be fought with tactics.
What is says to me is that when young Muslim representatives make antisemitic comments, progressives make heroes out of them, but if a young Jewish representative says something offensive, no one will bother to “call him in” or try to educate him. Religious Muslims are children to be endlessly celebrated and apologized for; religious Jews are evil and don’t deserve to sit in government. Quite consistent with how people at Mondoweiss think, actually, given how many how posted excerpts from Israel Shahak about how bad religious Judaism is; I mean, YoniFalic, who was banned from Twitter for antisemitic posting, is free to post here.
One day, Phil, you’ll reflect on how you helped encourage antisemitism, which is rising all over the world. Today, a new poll in France came out indicating that 1 in 5 French Jewish university students have been the victim of a violent antisemitic attack. https://www.jta.org/quick-reads/9-in-10-french-jewish-students-report-suffering-campus-anti-semitism-poll-finds
If Kalman Yeger can’t be on an immigration committee because he doesn’t believe that Palestine exists, Ilhan Omar should not be on the House Foreign Affairs committee if she believes that Jews can’t support a strong US-Israel relationship without being dually loyal.
“repeatedly asserting that Palestinians and Palestine don’t exist.”
While Council member Yeger may have recanted on the Palestinian people existing, he may be saying that for political expediency. Because that’s what the Israeli government does. They say they want peace with the Palestinians, and then they govern like the Palestinians are not people. Their planned POLICIES treat the Palestinians as vermin to be exterminated, to the degree they can get away with it politically.
“the destruction of the Jewish state and its people”
Amidst all the complaints about the criminality of the Jewish state there are virtually NO calls to destroy the Jewish people. Yeger’s LIE here is essential in his justifying the 70 year Zionist campaign of terrorism, mass murder, and robbery against the innocent indigenous people of Palestine. Which he will NEVER mention, as per AIPAC’s “No Debate” tactic revealed in The Lobby. (Instead, get indignant and walk away, says AIPAC.)