Rep. Jerry Nadler campaigned in the New York Jewish community last night by saying that “no one else has been able” to keep progressives in Congress pro-Israel, but he has kept BDS from getting a “foothold” there.
Asked at the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center last night why has campaigned on the issue of New York City keeping a Jew in Congress, Nadler spoke of rising antisemitism and then BDS.
“We have to have more and more attention and frankly political power to fight this antisemitism. And to understand how to fight it and to have the people in Congress in particular who can talk to the left, which is the progressives, and keep them pro-Israel…. A Jewish member of Congress who has the three positions that I have [including Judiciary chairmanship] and has the ability to work with the progressives… has shown the ability and the willingness to use the resources to prevent BDS from getting a foothold on the left.”
BDS is a nonviolent campaign led by Palestinians to boycott and divest from Israel over its human rights violations.
Nadler bragged of writing the House resolution calling BDS antisemitic in 2019. That bill had the backing of J Street, and Nadler bragged of his endorsement by the liberal Zionist group J Street and the rightwing Israel lobby group AIPAC.
“The fact is I’m endorsed by both AIPAC and J Street, I’m the only candidate of whom that’s true because of my success in deepening the Israel-American relationship and in getting progressives to stand with Israel, which no one else has been able to do. And I have been able to do that. And that’s why you get votes like 421 to 7 on funding Iron Dome.”
Nadler is battling another incumbent, Carolyn Maloney, in the newly-combined 12th district in Manhattan. Last night Maloney staked out positions to his right on Israel. She opposes the Iran deal and said nothing in support of the “two-state solution,” which Nadler said he supports.
The third candidate on the stage was Suraj Patel, an attorney and former Obama aide, who said there was “no daylight” between his positions on Israel and Nadler’s. All three candidates praised Trump’s deals to normalize relations between Israel and Arab monarchies. Nadler called them a “fantastic advance… probably the only thing I congratulate President Trump for.”
All the candidates tried to outdo one another trashing BDS. Maloney called it “dangerous and a threat,” and said there was a fine line between it and antisemitism. Nadler said the public needs a “large scale educational effort” against BDS and said he had “stopped it dead in Congress”.
“I’ve been fighting BDS since 2001 when it first reared its ugly head after the Durban conference. It’s not a question of freedom of speech, quite the contrary. BDS itself is a violation of freedom speech because it denies Israeli academics, Israeli performers the right to come here and speak. So BDS is anti free speech…I have led the fight in Congress against it. The bill that passed against BDS– Brad Schneider and I wrote that bill… On the public we need a large scale educational effort about BDS and there’s no way around it, but I have been able to stop it dead in Congress and make sure that it hasn’t taken a foothold in the progressive caucus…. I got the Ford Foundation to stop supporting BDS.”
In fact, in polling released by Brookings last week, Democrats have shown marked support for BDS as a means to curb Israel’s human rights violations– by 33 to 10 percent (with many still not familiar with it). So Nadler is fighting a tide.
Patel offered his own opposition to BDS as a Stanford undergraduate 18 years ago and said this is why he ran– to maintain Israel’s support among young progressives.
This comes back to my initial argument here for all of you. I am incredibly concerned that the next generation of Democrats are veering away from the stalwart support of the Jewish state of Israel and its right to exist. We need messengers who can speak to that generation and insure it doesn’t drift away for good. And I’m the only one on this stage who can make that argument.
Moderator Jodi Rudoren said that both Nadler and Maloney are “AIPAC stalwarts” and challenged Nadler about that endorsement.
Nadler said it wasn’t AIPAC’s fault that it has poured millions into Democratic primaries– more than any other special interest.
“The problem isn’t AIPAC, the problem is Citizens United [decision by the Supreme Court],” Nadler said. He has tried to pass legislation to “outlaw this kind of soft money,” but till such legislation passes, “AIPAC and J Street and everybody else will have to use this kind of soft money.”
Patel said there had been no “flood of outside money” into the 12th district from AIPAC, Democratic Majority for Israel or J Street — because everyone on stage is a “stalwart” supporter of Israel.
Nadler said he has been pro-Israel since he was eight years old– 67 years ago– when he was collecting money for Israel’s (racist) Jewish National Fund.
Patel countered that only he can preserve youthful support for Israel against “vocal” Dems who don’t like Israel.
“This is one of the reasons I’m running for this seat… We need to insure that the U.S. Israel relationship does not become a one party issue. Now if you don’t elect young Democrats– Democrats in places like New York City who want to support the U.S. Israel relationship– then the conversation is then monopolized by only one small group of very vocal Democrats who are much younger, then this will become a partisan issue and not a historical bipartisan issue, which is why I’m in this race.
“That’s the distinction between me and my opponents. I’m offering for the next 10 years a representative that will be aligned on this issue and will be able to make a new generational case to Democrats to stay stalwart with our ally, our liberal democracy in the Middle East, the only one that supports LGBTQIA rights, and to secure its defense.
Maloney expressed regret for her support for the Iraq war, after Nadler faulted her for backing a war that killed “hundreds of thousands.” He said, “she was gullible enough to believe the misrepresentations of the Bush administration.”
Maloney made repeated hello’s to an audience member: Janice Shorenstein, the head of Hadassah and a major donor to Democrats.
‘Moderator Jodi Rudoren’
Ah, yes … Jodi Rudoren…
Who could forget her “interview,” in the Times, w the “planter of bombs under Palestinian cars.” (You may remember she never stated whether those bombs went off — by all means, prevent that visualization.)
Of this “planter of bombs under Palestinian cars,” she wrote: “He spoke in complicated, nuanced sentences.” They were then interrupted by the wife of the “planter of bombs under Palestinian cars,” who came in from the kitchen to apologize for the noise she would soon be making, and the “planter of bombs under Palestinian cars” said, w a twinkle in his eye (true!), “That noise will soon be a cake.”
Ah, yes. Rudoren at the New York Times.
RE: “our ally, our liberal democracy in the Middle East” ~ Patel
MR SNARKISM: “Liberal” democracy, my patootie!
DAHLIA SCHEINDLIN IN HAARETZ (Aug 8, 2022): . . . Now, in the July Peace Index, fully 64 percent of Israeli Jews identify as right-wing. Twenty-two percent of Jews identify as centrists, and 11 percent as left-wing (the rest declined to respond). If large portions of Arab citizens stay home in November, Israel could easily have 70-75 right-wing seats; without Netanyahu in the way there could be a full-on if not hard-right coalition, and there’s no telling what it might do to Israel or the Palestinians.
ENTIRE COMMENTARY (MAY ENCOUNTER PAYWALL) – https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2022-08-08/ty-article-opinion/.premium/from-gaza-to-the-ballot-box-do-palestinians-really-matter-to-israelis/00000182-7d4a-dd4c-a9cb-7febd1be0000
P.S. ALSO SEE: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: No Solutions, No Illusions | By Richard Silverstein | Tikun Olam | August 10, 2022
EXCERPT: Is there a solution to the conflict? I would argue, no. Forever? No. But for now, there is no reasonable chance to reach such a solution. Has there been a chance over the past 70 years? No. For the next 70 years? Maybe.
This is a tough thing to admit for someone who’s been devoted to the idea that there is a solution, and has been working for decades toward it. But you have to look reality dead in the face without flinching, and say what you really see. Not what you want to see. The truth is very plain. It’s staring us in the face. We just hate what we see so much we don’t want to admit it. . .
ENTIRE HEARTFELT COMMENTARY – https://www.richardsilverstein.com/2022/08/10/israeli-palestinian-conflict-no-solutions-no-illusions/
I voted in that primary. Today, by absentee ballot. For Suraj Patel. I sent him an email to tell him why. Here is what I said:
I am an anti-Zionist Jew, something you will find is not rare in New York, and is becoming more and more common. Including many Jews who won’t say so in public. Why? Because of what Israel is, what Israel does, what Israel keeps doing. Some of us don’t think a country that imprisons people without charging them (let alone trying or convicting them) is entitled to be called a democracy.
And yes, I support BDS. Of course I do. It’s nonviolent, which is very important to me. And it is a matter of free speech. It’s not economic, it’s political. No one thinks it can harm Israel’s economy. Harming Israel’s reputation, yes. Why do you think Israel and its supporters are so hot under the collar about it?
I met Miko Peled when he was on a book tour for “The General’s Son” — his father was a famous Israeli general. I said to him, “People tell me that Israeli Jews don’t know what’s going on in the Occupied Territories. How can that be? They all serve in the army. They see it. They do it.” He said, “They know. They just think it’s OK.”
I voted for you because I think you are, well, educable. Mr. Nadler and Ms. Maloney know what Israel is and what it does, and they think it’s OK. They aren’t going to change. Not even when it becomes possible to do so without committing political suicide. Which it will.
I think, I hope, that with more knowledge of the facts on the ground in Palestine you may change.
When you do, remember: you have Jewish allies.
“BDS is a nonviolent campaign led by Palestinians to boycott and divest from Israel over its human rights violations.
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BDS is being countered for being anti-Israel’s existence, for being anti-Semitic. Not for the human rights violations.
BDS would become unstoppable if it were clear to all the boycott would end upon Palestinian citizens being granted equality under the laws of the state. Such a targeted boycott would evolve the equation toward the logical one state outcome with equality for Arabs and Jews.
Go Nadler! You’ve got my vote!