All 25 Jewish Democratic House members have put out a joint statement condemning recent remarks made by Amnesty International USA Executive Director Paul O’Brien about Israel.
While addressing the Woman’s National Democratic Club last week, O’Brien said that Israel “shouldn’t exist as a Jewish state.” The remarks were first reported by Jewish Insider.
“The right of the people to self-determination and to be protected is without a doubt something that we believe in, and I personally believe that,” O’Brien told attendees, but “we are opposed to the idea — and this, I think, is an existential part of the debate — that Israel should be preserved as a state for the Jewish people.”
When asked about a 2020 Ruderman Family Foundation that found most Jewish Americans identified with Israel, O’Brien pushed back on that narrative. “I actually don’t believe that to be true,” he said. “I believe my gut tells me that what Jewish people in this country want is to know that there’s a sanctuary that is a safe and sustainable place that the Jews, the Jewish people can call home.”
“As Jewish Members of the House of Representatives, we represent diverse views on a number of issues relating to Israel,” reads the statement from the House members. “However, we are in full agreement that Mr. O’Brien’s patronizing attempt to speak on behalf of the American Jewish community is alarming and deeply offensive. He has added his name to the list of those who, across centuries, have tried to deny and usurp the Jewish people’s independent agency. We stand united in condemning this and any antisemitic attempt to deny the Jewish people control of their own destiny.”
Many of the lawmakers who signed onto the statement shared it on social media with further remarks, including from lawmakers who did not sign the statement. “Proud to stand with Jewish Democratic Members of Congress as they speak out against the antisemitic statement by the Executive Director of Amnesty International USA that denies the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland of Israel,” tweeted House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD).
“I stand with my Jewish Democratic colleagues and their statement against the offensive and antisemitic comments of Amnesty USA’s executive director denying the Jewish people’s right to self-determination,” said Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-NY).
O’Brien’s remarks have been condemned by other non-Jewish members of Congress. “The Director of Amnesty USA comes out of the closet as a crusader against Israel’s very existence as a Jewish state,” tweeted pro-Israel Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY). “Thank you for sparing us all the pretense that the Amnesty report is anything other than an ideological hit job.”
O’Brien’s comments came less than two months after Amnesty International put out a landmark 280-page report declaring Israel an apartheid state. “Decades of deliberately unequal treatment of Palestinians in all areas under the control of Israel has left Palestinians marginalized and subject to widespread and systematic socio-economic disadvantage as they are barred from equitable access to natural and financial resources, livelihood opportunities, healthcare and education,” reads the document.
A 2021 poll from the Jewish Electorate Institute found that 38% of Jewish voters under 40 think Israel’s an apartheid state, 43% think Israel’s racism is comparable to the United States’, and 20% don’t believe that Israel has the right to exist.
Democratic signers of the statement targeting O’Brien were Reps. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), Suzanne Bonamici (OR), David Cicilline (RI), Steve Cohen (TN), Ted Deutch (FL), Lois Frankel (FL), Josh Gottheimer (NJ), Sara Jacobs (CA), Mike Levin (CA), Andy Levin (MI), Alan Lowenthal (CA), Elaine Luria (VA), Kathy Manning (NC), Jerry Nadler (NY), Dean Phillips (MN), Jamie Raskin (MD), Jan Schakowsky (IL), Adam Schiff (CA), Brad Schneider (IL), Kim Schrier (WA), Brad Sherman (CA), Elissa Slotkin (MI), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL), Susan Wild (PA) and John Yarmuth (KY).
Jewish Insider’s supposed quotes are quite obviously not the actual statements of anyone who works in human rights, phrasing along the lines of “the right of the State of Israel to survive” in particular is clearly the hyperbolic rantings of the type of person who refers Ben & Jerry’s not wanting to do business in the settlements as an act of terrorism and brand people like Emma Watson as antisemites.
As Paul O’Brien explained himself on Twitter:
I hope the article here might be scrapped in favor of some actual reporting on what happened.
They continue to show their unwavering love and support…whether it is bombing Gaza and hundreds civilians (and babies) being killed, whether it is spying on us, whether it is stealing lands and building illegal settlements, Steny Hoyer and these hypocrites in Congress, will always act outraged, and use the anti-semitic card to help Israel silence those who speak the truth, or bring focus to Israel’s endless crimes. They will make sure Israel (despite being the nation with the most UN resolutions against it), will continue to be given billons of dollars in aid and the weapons that it uses against unarmed civilians. after all Jewish lives are more precious than Arab ones, and poor Palestinians can be killed for protesting with for their suffering. They must support, defend, and arm, the side that cries victim louder than those dirt poor Palestinians. They must support the side that brags they are a democracy, while they make sure there is no freedom or basic rights for the victims of their occupation. American hypocrisy.
They whine that international human rights agencies are anti-semitic for denying Israel’s right to
self determination, and totally ignore the fact that Israel has been denying the Palestinian people’s right to self determination for over 50 years….that okay with politicians like Kathleen Rice?
I wish these zionists supporters will just remain in Israel when they go on their junket trip to pay homage to their masters, and stay there.
The Jewish Insider article is either an extremely poorly written piece of opinionated and misquoted drivel or was purposefully broken up into highly selective, disorganized, conjoined, fragments and snippets of quotes, misquotes, out of context and out of timeline, and vague secondhand and thirdhand interpretations of O’Brien’s speech.
That they also didn’t include the full (or any) transcript, let alone any full sentences, shows that in all likelihood it a purposefully confusingly stitched together hatchet job of convenient “sound bites” to stir up pro-Israel groups and lobbyists to discredit Amnesty International and give the Jewish arm of Congress a perfect excuse to sign and release a joint propaganda statement based entirely on a misquotation or “interpretation” of a talk that was conveniently waiting for them in their Inbox, care of AIPAC.
Does anyone honestly believe that between the afternoon of March 9th (O’Brien’ Talk) and March 14th – which included a Friday, Shabbat, and the weekend – that all 27 Jewish members of Congress and their staff all miraculously got wind of an article only published on Friday March 11th (once’s they in all likelihood had already knocked off work for Shabbat and their weekend) and that they all somehow unanimously managed to fully digest the issue, check the facts, address the entire talk, discuss it, decide, then give input, collaborate, prepare, edit, revise, and approve a joint statement to release by March 14th? If so, I have a loving bridge leading to Brooklyn to sell you! Also, imagine what this kind of work ethic would do for the US if their Congress members put the same effort into working for the American people instead of carrying water for Israel.
No surprise! Armed to the teeth, Zionist fascists are well prepared and ready to launch yet another slaughter and dispossession of indigenous Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip and elsewhere.
Chief of Staff Says Israeli Army is Ready to Invade Gaza – Palestine Chronicle
“Chief of Staff Says Israeli Army is Ready to Invade Gaza” Palestine Chronicle, March 14/22
“Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army Aviv Kohavi has claimed that his army is ready to invade Gaza and other Palestinian cities more effectively than what happened in Jenin in 2002, Israeli media reported.
“Israel’s Kan 11 reported Kohavi speaking on the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Jenin, along with other West Bank cities in 2002.
“At the time, the Israeli army’s attempt to stop the Intifada failed despite the massacres and war crimes it carried out.
“Kohavi said that the scenario carried out in Jenin in 2002, cutting communications, water and electricity to the city, could be repeated in Gaza in 2022, ‘but in a more effective way.’
“He claimed that the Israeli army’s ‘ability to occupy Palestinian cities and administer them gave the political and military Israeli leaderships, as well as the field commanders of the Israeli army, wide credibility that the army is able to reach everywhere.’
“Israel’s last invasion of Gaza was in 2014 when it killed over 2,200 Palestinians including 551 children. Since then, it has carried out a number of offensives against the Strip, the latest of which was in May 2021 when over 250 Palestinians were killed over 11 days. The Israeli army regularly shells Gaza, flies reconnaissance drones overhead and damages crops in the besieged enclave.”
Here’s how that works.
“‘Forward’ columnist and Emily’s List leader relate ‘gigantic,’ ‘shocking’ role of Jewish Democratic donors”
https://mondoweiss.net/2016/04/forward-columnist-and-emilys-list-leader-relate-gigantic-shocking-role-of-jewish-democratic-donors/