Last month 15 Democratic House members traveled to Israel as part of a delegation sponsored by the liberal Zionist group J Street. According to a new Jewish Insider interview with Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA), the congresswoman pushed the delegation to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and was “extremely impressed with his willingness to..grapple with us [on] some of the toughest issues that Israel’s facing.”
In January, Porter launched a Senate campaign to succeed Senator Dianne Feinstein in 2024. Fellow California Representatives Adam Schiff and Barbara Lee are also running for the seat.
Porter told JI’s Matthew Kassel that Netanyahu was “extremely generous both with his time and with his thoughts” and that the J Street group was “really able to have an interactive dialogue with him.
“I was extremely impressed with his willingness to kind of grapple with us at some of the toughest issues that Israel’s facing, everything from judicial reform — an issue that we’re having questions and discussions about right now within the Democratic Party here in the United States — to issues about the West Bank and about settlements,” said the congresswoman.
“[We] emphasized, and I think Netanyahu emphasized back, that there’s a long-term project here, which is to have a vibrant, secure Jewish democratic state of Israel — and that in order to do that, there needs to be opportunities for the Palestinian people to have their own elected government and governance and land,” she continued. “How we get there is unclear right now. But we shouldn’t let the impediments to that progress prompt us to give up on the goal, given its incredible importance to Israel and to the region and to the United States.”
Porter has emerged as a progressive favorite in recent years as a result of her fierce advocacy for consumer protection and forthright questioning of right-wing officials during congressional hearings. She’s not known for her foreign policy positions and admits to Kassel that she’s new to issue, but she certainly doesn’t typically vote with the relatively small group of House members who champion the rights of Palestinians. She’s not a cosponsor of Rep. Betty McCollum’s (D-MN) bill aimed at impeding Israel’s detention of Palestinian children, she voted in favor an additional $1 billion in Iron Dome funding in 2021, and backed a 2019 House resolution condemning the nonviolent BDS movement. She’s also praised the tightening of sanctions on Iran.
Porter also told Kassel that she has reached out to local AIPAC officials for Middle East analysis and read Noa Tishby’s 2021 book Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth. Tishby, an Israeli actress and “Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism and the Delegitimization of Israel,” is an outspoken opponent of the BDS movement and advocate for the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) controversial working definition of antisemitism. She regularly equates Judaism with Zionism and claims that anti-Zionism is inspiring attacks on Jewish people.
“Zionism is a movement for Jewish liberation and self-determination in a Jewish not exclusively Jewish state,” Tishby told the crowd at a pro-Israel rally in 2021. “It’s about the Jews, their right of Jewish people to live as a free people, after millennia of persecution in our ancestral land. When ignorant crowds and some supermodels on Instagram hatefully and irresponsibly spread these lies about Zionism, when they chant, ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’, when they engage in the modern day libel of blaming Israel as a genocidal state, they shouldn’t be surprised when that demonization results in Jews being attacked on the streets of this beloved country.”
In addition to J Street, Porter’s congressional campaigns have been backed by Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI), a lobbying group created for the expressed purpose of stomping out the growing concern for Palestinians within the Democratic party. In a 2018 Twitter post DMFI board member Archie Gottesman declared that Gaza was “full of monsters” and that it was “time to burn the whole place.”
This is beyond disappointing. Porter seemed like a rare breed in DC that did her homework, impartially delved into complex issues and wasn’t afraid to ask difficult questions and take any BS in return.
The mere fact that she couldn’t or simple wouldn’t see right through Netanyahu’s utter bullshit and lies, that wouldn’t even fool a Trump supporter, suggested that she is either not nearly as dialed in or smart as she seems. Or she sees all those crispy Benjamins and support from AIPAC as her only way to a Senate seat.
Given the timing of her recent and highly unethical all expenses paid propaganda tour to Israel, barely a month after announcing her run for the Senate. All the evidence suggests that it is the latter and that she has absolutely no business servicing Israel and AIPAC in the Senate, or the House for that matter.
I honestly thought that she knew better than this. She clearly doesn’t… or clearly does. Making it even worse.
So Ms Porter would be okay with, say, a “Christian democratic USA” or a “Muslim democratic USA”. Not sure how mandating a single religion is compatible with democracy.
Clearly Porter is not a progressive or fact based on this issue. Too bad, support her on domestic issues.
Rep Barbara Lee IS. Rep Lee, correct on Iraq, Afghanistan. A true progressive all of the way around. Both domestically and internationally. Lee not a war hawk. Basis her decisions on hard facts.
I thought agents/lobbyist for foreign countries (AIPAC) were not allowed to pay or sponsor trips for our alleged Reps. We need to get back to pushing for AIPAC etc being required to register as agents for a foreign nation. FARA
https://www.justice.gov/nsd-fara
I will be doing my best to help Rep Barbara Lee become the candidate for Feinstein’s seat. Feinstein and her husband should be investigated for profiting from the war in Iraq. Insider trading….
This is disappointing. She has joined the ranks of hundreds of congresspeople who decides to kiss a certain behind, that will help them get support from a foreign nation and their lobbies here, to win elections in the US. In American politics it all depends on whose behind you kiss up to, and this is the largest one you have to kneel before, and then shower with unwavering support once you win.
At this point you know that Porter is willing to ignore what she has preached about, human rights, freedom, and saving the lives of the occupied, all to win. She has gone over to the dark side.
And clearly you believed him……..I’m flabbergasted at your admiration for Netanyahu.