Cori Bush, 44, a single mother, a nurse and a Black Lives Matter activist, on Tuesday won in the Democratic primary for Missouri’s 1st Congressional District, defeating long-time incumbent Rep. William Lacy Clay. Clay held the seat since 2001, a seat he literally inherited his father, Bill Clay, who was first elected in 1968.
Like most democrats in the House, Lacey Clay voted to condemn the BDS movement last year, and was considered a friend of Israel and of AIPAC. Now things will change in Missouri’s 1st, as Bush, who is expected to win in November, is decidedly not a friend. A campaign mailer sent to Lacy Clay supporters suggested Bush supports ending military assistance to Israel, and accused her of failing “to condemn anti-Semitic comments by her fellow staffers while working as a national surrogate for Senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign.”
The campaign attached a picture showing Bush in a close selfie with anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour, an avowed supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. In September 2019, Sarsour was forced to step down from the Women’s March following a controversy over the organization’s handling of accusations of anti-Semitism.
Just before Tuesday’s election, the St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee issued a statement in support of Bush that went well beyond her opponent’s innuendo: “Cori Bush has been a staunch supporter of Palestinian rights and harsh critic of Israel. She spoke at our rally on July 3 to oppose Israel’s move to annex the West Bank and she shares our principles of anti-imperialism abroad and anti-racism at home. Cori Bush has expressed support for the House bill (HR 2407) which would cut military aid to Israel on the basis of its detention and torture of Palestinian youth—the first bill ever to unequivocally uphold Palestinian rights and to condition financial support for Israel. She would join Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar (the only two members of Congress to support Boycott, Divestment Sanctions (BDS)) as a new member of ‘The Squad,.'”
Candidate Bush deleted a page on her campaign website, in which she wrote (we thank Jewish Insider for the save – DI) that her support for BDS had been mischaracterized and demonized by her opponents.
“I stand by the right of Palestinians to live as a free people just as the people of Israel and we as US citizens are allowed to do,” the deleted page read. “We also stand by their right to call for a boycott on goods and services that the government that is currently oppressing them profits from, in order to draw attention to their plight.”
So, Israel has lost another friend in Congress. All we can hope is that New York State Democrats will do the responsible thing once the 2020 census results are in, and gerrymander both anti-Israel Democrats, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and while they’re at it, Jamaal Bowman, who ousted Congressman Eliot Engel. It’s something a state governor is entitled to do, and if this governor wants to save the national Democratic party from being swept to the extreme left and losing its appeal in the suburbs, he’ll do it.
Original photo: pic.twitter.com/iPZlepkHaS
— Cori Bush (@CoriBush)