There’s something wrong with this picture: California congressperson Katie Porter visited Israel recently and met with right-wing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and gushed that she was “extremely impressed” and even offered support for his judicial coup. Just like NY Senator Kirsten Gillibrand met Netanyahu in January, and gushed over his strategy for ignoring Palestinian rights by baiting Iran. Just like Andrew Cuomo announced that he is starting a Progressives for Israel organization to fight for the apartheid country inside the Democratic Party.
“And I’m going to call the question for Democrats. Do you stand with Israel, or do you stand against Israel? Because silence is not an option,” the disgraced former governor said.
The thing that’s wrong with this picture is that the Democratic street rejects the fascistic Netanyahu–and it isn’t keen on his country either. This week a Gallup poll confirmed what we all know in our gut—Israel’s reputation is crashing among American progressives: “49% of Democrats said their sympathies lie with Palestinians, while 38% said they sympathize with Israelis.”
That’s the first time Palestinians have outpolled Israel among Democrats, and the difference isn’t even close —and it proves that Democratic politicians aren’t listening to their own constituents on the Israel issue. They’re trying to please the pro-Israel elites in order to get establishment/financial support in elections.
And oh, by the way — Gillibrand is running for reelection next year. Andrew Cuomo is rumored to be planning to primary her. Both are trying to ingratiate themselves with the Israel lobby (and older Jewish voters). Katie Porter launched her run for a California Senate seat two months back. Adam Schiff is also running for that seat– a “staunch” supporter of Israel in the AIPAC lane. (See this picture of his son wearing a Mossad t-shirt that a proud Schiff posted on social media).
These politicians will be the last to be aware of the convulsions happening right under their feet.
And speaking of sympathy for Palestinians, what could be a more urgent and obvious mission in this frightful moment in Palestine than for our journalists, let alone politicians, to simply ask a Palestinian who has taken up arms, Why’d you do it? Our correspondent Yumna Patel asked that vital question in her report on resistance in Jenin and got an eloquent answer that may unsettle us but that cannot surprise anyone who has paid any attention to Israeli practices.
“We were brought up as kids in the middle of this– every day an army raid, every day an operation,” the anonymous fighter answers. “Every day someone is arrested. Every day youth are executed, women are executed. The occupation enters the camp and the city without any differentiation between the old and the young, it kills whoever is in its way… This is our reality. Of course we’re not going to be sitting at desk jobs.”
What a tragedy that our mainstream media are indifferent to such views, even as they glorify Israeli killers. And yet I say, on the best authority: Democratic voters are wising up!
Thanks for reading,
Phil
What an embarrassment they are to democracy and the rule of law. Katie Porter claims to support progressive values, but she has sold her soul on this issue.