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Jamaal Bowman Faces Long Odds in NY Democratic Primary Where His Anti-Israel Stance Has Taken Center Stage
US Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) speaks during the National Action Network National Convention in New York City, US, April 7, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
US Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), a progressive lawmaker and prominent critic of Israel, is facing an uphill battle to secure a victory in his Democratic primary race on Tuesday.
Bowman, the representative of New York’s 16th Congressional District, will attempt to defend his congressional seat against Westchester County executive Mark Latimer. The progressive firebrand has drawn the ire of pro-Israel Democrats in recent months after issuing a series of harsh condemnations against the Jewish state and Zionists writ large.
In the months following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, Bowman has accused the Jewish state of committing “genocide” in Gaza and enacting an “apartheid” regime in the West Bank. Bowman infamously dismissed the widely reported and corroborated allegations of Hamas terrorists raping Israeli women during the Oct. 7 onslaught as “propaganda” before being forced to walk back his remarks. The congressman has also voted against sending Israel much-needed military aid and, at a recent debate, asserted that the US government should “stop all funding” to Israel — including Iron Dome, an air defense system that saves Israeli lives from rockets and missiles launched by neighboring terrorist groups.
In a heated primary that has been largely defined by the two candidates’ position on Israel, Bowman finds himself as an underdog. Latimer, a self-described progressive who has positioned himself as a staunch ally of the Jewish state, is expected to cruise to an easy victory.
A June Emerson College poll shows Bowman trailing Latimer by 17 percentage points, 48 percent to 31 percent. The poll also revealed that NY-16 voters align with Latimer’s position on Israel more than Bowman’s by a margin of 45 percent to 29 percent.
Bowman’s repeated excoriations of Israel made him an exceptionally vulnerable candidate in the leafy suburbs of Westchester County, an affluent enclave dominated by moderate Democrats. Former Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY) opted to endorse Latimer over Bowman, citing Latimer’s support for Israel as a major reason.
“Jewish residents in my district who feel anxiety, fear, and anger due to Representative Bowman’s words and actions in particular and an overall climate in this country,” Jones said.
Furthermore, Bowman’s support also cratered among progressive Jewish voters. J-Street, a liberal Zionist advocacy group, ultimately walked back its endorsement of Bowman, citing “significant differences” on their positions on Israel.
“I was always having to be his defender,” said Danielle Tagger-Epstein, chair of the Rye City Democratic Committee. “And I could no longer defend his behavior.”
Additionally, Bowman’s vilification of the Jewish state led the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a bipartisan advocacy group that works to strengthen US-Israel ties, to insert itself into the NY-16 primary competition. AIPAC has poured a staggering $14.5 million into the race in an attempt to dislodge Bowman, making it the most expensive House primary contest of all time. In response, Bowman has spent the past few months attacking AIPAC, accusing the organization of being aligned with “racist” Republicans and specifically trying to remove “black and brown” members of Congress.
“We’re gonna show f—king AIPAC the motherf—king power of the South Bronx,” Bowman said at a campaign rally over the weekend.
“This race offers an unambiguous choice. George Latimer is a progressive, pro-Israel candidate while Jamaal Bowman has refused to support the Jewish state as it fights a moral and just war against Iranian terrorist proxies,” AIPAC spokesperson Marshall Wittmann said of the primary contest.
Some consider Tuesday’s primary a test of whether anti-Israel positions are still a liability with Democratic voters. Progressives fear that a Latimer victory could embolden moderate forces to pull the party back to the center on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In recent months, high-profile Democratic lawmakers have called on Israel to implement a “ceasefire” and abandon its mission to dismantle the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza.
“If Bowman wins, it might be interpreted by some as an indicator of where the Democratic Party broadly is headed on support for Israel — which is away from it,” said Daniel DiSalvo, a political scientist at City College of New York, according to Vox. “If Latimer wins, it might be interpreted as the other way, which is that there is still stronger support for Israel inside the Democratic Party.”
The post Jamaal Bowman Faces Long Odds in NY Democratic Primary Where His Anti-Israel Stance Has Taken Center Stage first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Good Morning Britain’ Host Apologizes for ‘Mistake’ in Not Mentioning Jews as Victims of Holocaust
Ranvir Singh during a news segment on “Good Morning Britain” on Jan. 27, 2025. Photo: Screenshot
“Good Morning Britain” host Ranvir Singh issued an apology Tuesday on air after failing to mention Jewish victims of the Holocaust during her coverage of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“In yesterday’s news, when we reported on the memorial events in Auschwitz, we said six million people were killed in the Holocaust but crucially failed to say they were Jewish. That was our mistake, which we apologize for,” said Singh, 47.
During a news segment on the ITV show on Monday morning, Singh discussed the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland, and reported on how King Charles was set to become the first British monarch to visit the site of the former Nazi death camp later that day for a special ceremony in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day. Singh talked briefly about the history of the Holocaust but when listing its victims, she failed to include Jews, who the Nazis sought to eliminate through genocide during World War II.
“Six million people were killed in concentration camps during the Second World War, as well as millions of others because they were Polish, disabled, gay, or belonged to another ethnic group,” Singh said on air.
The British organization Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) criticized Singh in a post on social media for her failure to mention Holocaust victims who were Jewish.
“Jews. The word you’re looking for is ‘Jews,’ not ‘people.’ This truly beggars belief,” CAA said. “This dire reporting is not only factually incorrect but erases Jews from a genocide in which six million Jewish men, women, and children were slaughtered specifically because they were Jews.” It additionally noted that there was no mention of the word “antisemitism” in the news segment.
“To make matters worse, there is no reference to Jewish people at all for over two minutes into this segment, and when there finally is one, it is only done once and in regard to former history students taking a tour of the Jewish quarter of Kraków,” CAA observed. “If this is intended to pay respect to the victims of Holocaust Memorial Day, it has failed abysmally and ignores the true nature of this horrific event.”
Michael Dickson — the executive director of StandWithUs in Israel, a nonprofit that combats antisemitism — said “deleting Jews” when discussing the history of the Holocaust and “the attempt to annihilate them” is “a slap in the face to Holocaust survivors and victims’ families.” He also said Singh’s acknowledgement of the “mistake” is “the opposite of a full-hearted apology.”
After Singh’s apology on air, ITV released a statement about the incident.
“In our studio introduction to the report on the 80th anniversary of Auschwitz we failed to acknowledge the Jewish community which we have since apologized for live on air in today’s program,” ITV noted, according to the British publication The Sun. “This failure was done in error, however clear reference to Jewish people in the correspondent news report from Auschwitz immediately followed, as well as a further extended program report referencing the six million Jewish victims.”
“Yesterday’s program also included a live studio interview with a survivor of Auschwitz, Rachel Levy, alongside Olivia Marks-Woldman, chief executive of the Holocaust Memorial Trust, both of whom talked candidly about their own experiences as Jewish people,” the statement continued.
However, CAA said that even after ITV’s apology for the “scandalous blunder,” it would still like to know “how did such an obvious mistake happen in the first place?”
“The irony of this sort of ‘forgetfulness’ on a day of remembrance is not lost on us,” CAA added. “Holocaust Memorial Day is first and foremost a day to memorialize the six million Jewish men, women, and children murdered by gas and bullet by the Nazis and their collaborators. Its principal lesson is the need to bravely combat antisemitism whenever it arises, including in our own time. Given that Britain is currently experiencing the worst antisemitism in living memory, that lesson is more important than ever. Why, then, does our society keep failing to learn it?”
King Charles, 76, appeared to shed a tear as he listened to testimonies from survivors of the Auschwitz concentration camp during Monday’s ceremony at the site. He was joined by other world leaders including King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of The Netherlands, Spain‘s King Felipe and Queen Letizia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Belgium‘s King Philippe and Queen Mathilde, Norway‘s Crown Prince Haakon, and Sweden‘s Crown Princess Victoria.
King Charles also visited the Jewish Community Center in Krakow on Monday. During a speech, he said the “evil” that took place during the Holocaust should ensure the world will never again “be a bystander in the face of violence and hate.”
“As the number of Holocaust survivors regrettably diminishes with the passage of time, the responsibility of remembrance rests far heavier on our shoulders, and on those of generations yet unborn,” he added. “The act of remembering the evils of the past remains a vital task and in so doing, we inform our present and shape our future.”
The United Kingdom holds the presidency of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) — an intergovernmental organization comprising dozens of countries — from March 1, 2024, until Feb. 28 2025.
The post ‘Good Morning Britain’ Host Apologizes for ‘Mistake’ in Not Mentioning Jews as Victims of Holocaust first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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UAE’s Edge Group Invests in Israeli Drone Tech Firm as Abraham Accords Hold Strong Amid Gaza War
Israel’s then-Minister of Economy and Industry Orna Barbivai and UAE Minister of Economy Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri present the Free Trade Agreement they signed, which is the first such agreement Israel has with an Arab county, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, May 31, 2022. Photo: Anuj Taylor Strap Studios-GPO/Handout via REUTERS
The Emirati defense and technology conglomerate EDGE Group has acquired a stake in an Israeli defense firm, underscoring the resilience of the Abraham Accords amid the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
The acquisition of a 30 percent stake in ThirdEye is the latest example of growing defense collaboration between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
Since 2020, as part of the Abraham Accords — a series of historic US-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab countries — defense and economic cooperation between Israel and the United Arab Emirates has grown, alongside diplomatic ties with Sudan, Bahrain, and Morocco.
According to ThirdEye Systems Ltd., EDGE Group is investing $10 million in exchange for a stake in the company.
In addition, the two companies will establish a joint venture with a further $12 million investment to focus on “developing and marketing cutting-edge electro-optical object recognition systems.”
EDGE is one of the top three global suppliers of precision-guided munitions, consisting of over 35 companies, while ThirdEye is a research and development firm specializing in object recognition technology for drones used by the Israeli military.
Despite the war in Gaza, economic ties between Israel and the UAE have remained strong.
Last year, annual Israel-UAE trade was reportedly projected to reach a record $3.3 billion compared to $2.95 billion in 2023.
Trade is mainly centered on diamonds, with precious stones being the largest exports between the two nations in 2022 and 2023.
In 2022, Israel strengthened its defense ties with the UAE by agreeing to sell the SPYDER air defense system, made by the Israeli company Rafael.
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Netanyahu Meets Trump’s Envoy Witkoff After Saudi Trip
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at a memorial ceremony for those murdered by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, and those who fell in the “Iron Sword” war, at the Knesset, the Parliament, in Jerusalem, Oct. 28, 2024. Photo: DEBBIE HILL/Pool via REUTERS
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was meeting in Jerusalem with US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Netanyahu said in a statement on Wednesday, amid the Gaza ceasefire and a regional diplomatic push.
A day after visiting Saudi Arabia, Israeli media reported that Witkoff had also been in Gaza on Wednesday to oversee the implementation of the ceasefire there, which Trump has said he wants to leverage into a broader regional accord that would include Saudi Arabia and Israel formalizing diplomatic ties.
An Israeli government spokesman declined to provide any details on Witkoff‘s visit to Gaza, which Israel’s Channel 13 said included an inspection of the Netzarim corridor, which tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians have crossed over as they returned to their homes in the northern part of the enclave.
Israel began pulling out of the corridor on Monday and allowing their return as part of the first phase of the ceasefire, which will also see 33 hostages freed in exchange for the release of almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
Seven hostages have already been released since the ceasefire took effect on Jan. 19. Three more, including a civilian woman and an elderly man, as well as a female conscript soldier, will be released on Thursday, according to Netanyahu‘s office and the Hostage Families Forum.
Israel will free 110 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, according to the Palestinian prisoners’ Information Office.
Five Thai citizens abducted from Israel during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack that sparked the conflict may also be released on Thursday, according to an Israeli official.
The post Netanyahu Meets Trump’s Envoy Witkoff After Saudi Trip first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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