There are no people as persecuted as the Jews. Subject to pogroms, ethnic cleansing, blood libels and genocides throughout history and around the world, they have been the victims of the powerful and of the weak.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman represents New York State’s 16th Congressional District which covers lower Westchester County, just north of New York City. It is estimated to be over 20% Jewish and has one of the largest Jewish populations in the United States.
From his powerful podium, Bowman deliberately insults Jewish history and incites hatred for the Jewish State.
On May 11, 2021, while Israeli courts were attempting to handle a property dispute of an Arab family squatting (not paying rent to the Jewish landlords) in a Jerusalem apartment, and suppressing a violent Arab mob who objected to Jews being allowed onto their holiest site of the Temple Mount, Bowman published a particularly noxious anti-Semitic and anti-Israel statement. It opened:
“There’s so much we’re dealing with within our own borders that it’s often difficult for Americans to turn our attention to the problems of people overseas, but it’s hard at this moment not to be struck by the extent of suffering around the world. Whether it’s the infringement of human and civil rights of Palestinians living in Sheikh Jarrah, the violence against those praying in the Al-Aqsa mosque during the holy month of Ramadan in East Jerusalem, police violence against Colombians, a military coup in Myanmar, an ignored genocide in Ethiopia, or the ethnic cleansing of the Uyghurs in China, my heart is breaking for people around the world experiencing oppression and hurt.”
Bowman started with events in Israel – twice. He only referenced the perceived wrongs against Arabs, not the violent Arab attacks against Jews exercising their basic human rights to pray with dignity at their holiest location.
He then compared those relatively minor events to vicious global activities.
- In Colombia, police attacked and killed peaceful demonstrators protesting income inequality
- In Myanmar, the military essentially took over the entire government and arrested public officials
- In Ethiopia, an estimated 500,000 people were killed
- In China, hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs were imprisoned and shipped to “re-education camps”
How are any of these horrible actions against hundreds of thousands of peaceful civilians remotely close to Israel protecting Jews who want to visit the Temple Mount? Bowman deliberately abused language to stir up anger and violence against the Jewish State. Which is exactly what happened over the next days, with Jews around the world being attacked.
Further, to use words like “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” against the Jewish State, when Jews just suffered a true genocide in Europe, and ethnic cleansing in Israel at the hands of the Jordanian and Egyptian army who expelled all of the Jews from Judea and Samaria and the eastern part of Jerusalem, is to spit in the faces of actual victims.
Jamaal Bowman helped inflame violence against Jews around the world with malicious smears against Israel. He is unfit to serve in Congress.
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