Ritchie Torres is expected to win the Democratic primary for Congress in New York’s 15 district. The openly gay, South Bronx councilman is a self-described “pro-Israel progressive” and the first post-election event he attended was the Embassy of Israel’s 5th Annual Pride Event.
The virtual event also featured Israel Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer and Lt. Col. Dana Ben-Ezra, the first woman to command an IDF battalion.
Torres is one of three black candidates poised to win a Democratic primary in New York, but unlike the 16th district’s Jamaal Bowman, who ousted one of the most pro-Israel congress members and supports conditioning military aid to the country, Torres is to the right of many Democrats on the question of Palestine. Last year Torres told Jewish Insider, “I consider anti-Zionism a form of antisemitism, and I am not going to give consideration to antisemitic voices, voices that are dedicated to delegitimizing Israel as a Jewish state.”
He also told the website that he wouldn’t court the endorsement of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) or any group supporting BDS because, “There is a deep rot of antisemitism at the core of BDS, and I view it as an insidious form of antisemitism. I am concerned about the normalization of BDS within the progressive movement, and I worry deeply that BDS has the potential to poison progressivism.”
Samelys López, a DSA-backed candidate who also ran for the 15th district seat, tweeted out a thread responding to Torres’s appearance at the Pride event. “Ritchie leverages his identity to gain power & do the bidding of military forces. He intentionally and unapologetically weakens the progressive movement fighting for the liberation of occupied Palestine,” reads one of the tweets.
“Ritchie Torres’s win in NY-15 on Tuesday was something of a mixed result for progressives. Torres calls himself a progressive; his record is less resounding. Needless to say, NY lefties are going to keep a close, skeptical eye on him, and this is a very bad start,” tweeted American Prospect staff writer Alex Sammon, “If Torres thinks he’s going to pull into his DC office and start giving the left the middle finger he won’t last long. The current NY left is way too organized for that.”
In his remarks at the Pride event, Torres refers to Israel as an “oasis of democracy” and praises the country for its commitment to LGBTQ rights. “Having been to Israel twice, I can tell you firsthand that I feel at home in Israel as if it were my own country..”
The 15th district of New York is overwhelmingly Hispanic and Black over 90% according to Census. So his need to embrace Israel very likely has to do with a desire for Statewide politics which in New York requires Pro-Israel bonafides.
Ah yes! Israel. That good ol’ bastion of LGBTQ rights!
I’m pretty sure that Mr Torres wouldn’t feel the same or “at home in Israel” had Israel’s Unit 8200 intercepted his personal phone communications and then used his sexual preferences to blackmail and cultivate him as an intelligence source against his own people, like they do to hundreds of Palestinian civilians every year.
Oh, no! He wouldn’t like that at all. Then again, it’s amazing what a couple paid junkets and some very handsome campaign contributions will buy you in politics nowadays. Another willfully blind, uneducated, incurious, or plain ol’ useful idiot it seems.
I’m sure he has no problem with the Israeli government’s weaponization of LGBTQ communities when he’s not the target and if means a fast track to Capitol Hill.
It’s no surprise that a bought-and-paid-for Zionist American politician’s support for Jewish / “Jewish State” supremacism is “unshakeable”.
I have no doubt that, hypocritically, he has no problem with “voices dedicated to delegitimizing” Iran as an “Islamic State”.
I have no idea whether or not he cares at all about Americans.
What does delegitimization mean to this nice face hiding historical cultural stupidity ? How will his supporters feel if whites supremacist group made same argument ? If boycotting Tucker Carlson or Facebook or brick and mortar shops were kosher , why not Israeli products from WB .?Why featuring DF or its events are acceptable but not American cops and their presence in gatherings ?
I guess this career opportunist will equate the pillaging of harvest and destroying of Olive trees to that of the dismantling of the statues of the slave owning public figures . Israel can again teach him the new cant .Thats what the zionsit did when they claimed :” we rebelled fought and defeated the British colonialism in Israel.
“There is a deep rot of antisemitism at the core of BDS, and I view it as an insidious form of antisemitism. I am concerned about the normalization of BDS within the progressive movement, and I worry deeply that BDS has the potential to poison progressivism.”
No, it’s people like YOU that have the potential to poison progressivism! This guy is either a complete idiot or the worst type of lobby-appeasing sycophant. He and his Zionist-loving brethren, Harris and Booker, are on the WRONG side of history, and will be exposed and disposed of by BLM and the rest of the progressive movement soon enough!