Newly elected Rep. Jamaal Bowman, the progressive Democratic congressman from New York who replaced pro-Israel stalwart Eliot Engel, professes himself “heartened” now that Israel has sent 5,000 coronovirus vaccines to the Palestinians areas. His logic contradicts the longstanding opposition on the left to Israel’s military control of the West Bank.
Bowman was so upset for Israel not having sent the vaccines that he posted a critical tweet and requested a meeting with Israel’s consulate in New York, which he was granted.
At the time of Bowman’s critique of Israel, the Palestinian Authority had announced that it did not want vaccines from Israel, that it preferred to run its own health system. It preferred its own independence, which Israel respects in this arena. Still, Bowman thought Israel was wrong for not supplying the vaccines. Here is what he said he told acting Consul General Israel Nitzan: “I know the feeling of being neglected in my government and society, of feeling like a second class citizen or not a citizen at all in my own home.”
So now Israel is the “government” of the Palestinians? So now the Palestinian areas are the “home” of Israel. So now the Palestinians are “second class” citizens or not “citizens at all” within Israel — when they want to be independent of Israel?
Talk about damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Israel should both end the “occupation” of the West Bank and also be an “occupier!”
As it happens, Israel has since delivered 5,000 vaccine doses to the Palestinian Authority. Bowman said he was “heartened” by the news. Is he also heartened by the massive employment that Israel provides to Palestinians? Is he dismayed by the Palestinian policy of paying its terrorists and their families a “salary” for murderous terrorist acts against Israelis? Does Bowman have a consistent position?
Bowman is new on the job. We are not ready to place him in the same category as Rep. Rashid Tlaib or Rep. Ilhan Omar. On Bowman, we’ll wait and see. For now, his logic on the vaccine delivery is second class.
Had the Palestinian Authority asked for the vaccines, we too would have been heartened by Israel’s provision of them, but not surprised. Israel’s humanitarian approach is consistent around the world. Perhaps Bowman should check out Israel’s hospitals to see Palestinians treated there, gratis.
On the edge of the right, we have Marjorie Taylor Greene, a new Republican congressman from Georgia. There are no ambiguities or inconsistencies in her statements.
She has attributed the forest fires in California to “Jewish space lasers.”
She has called the 2018 mass murder at the school in Parkland, Florida a “false flag” operation.
She has said that 9/11 was fake.
Unfortunately, we are not making this up. Unfortunately, these were not stated as jokes. They have not been retracted, nor apologized for.
Marjorie Taylor Greene is dangerous.
Her denunciation by Jewish organizations is across the board, from the Conference of Presidents to the Republican Jewish Coalition.
It is far from only Jewish organizations who find her offensive and dangerous. Some seek to expel her from Congress. This has happened only twice since the Civil War and we doubt it will happen. That said, it behooves all of us to keep the beam on this person, to call out every damaging statement she makes, no less harmful for being ridiculous.
Especially at a time when anti-Semitism has reemerged around the world, the phrase “Jewish space lasers” is like yelling fire in a dark, crowded theater. In this single short phrase, “Jewish space lasers,” Taylor Greene has managed to capture four virulent ideas, classics in the history of anti-Semitism: the myth of Jewish control, the paranoia of Jewish malevolence, the illusion of Jewish ubiquitousness, and the projection of hate onto Jewish creativity.
Copyright © 2021 by the Intermountain Jewish News
