JNS.org – Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), one of Israel’s staunchest defenders in Congress, hinted at a run for higher office on Friday by taking aim at New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.

The Bronx Democrat said that like U.S. President Joe Biden, Hochul could be on the path to electoral defeat.

“Kathy Hochul is the new Joe Biden,” Torres wrote. “She may be in denial about the depth of her vulnerabilities as a Democratic nominee. A Democratic incumbent who is less popular in New York than Donald Trump is in grave danger of losing to a Republican in 2026–an outcome not seen in 30 years.”

“Waiting until it’s too late gave us a Republican President in 2024 and could give us a Republican governor in 2026,” he added. “Let’s avoid repeating history and avoid sleepwalking toward impending disaster and defeat.”

Torres in recent days has said that there is a “crisis of governance” in New York State and New York City.

“I think part of the story of the election is an indictment of misgovernance in New York state and New York City,” Torres said in an interview on Monday with Spectrum News NY1. “With few exceptions, nowhere was there a greater swing toward Donald Trump than in New York, which was a vote of no confidence in the leadership of New York state.”

U.S. President Joe Biden carried more than 60% of the vote in New York state in 2020, but in November, Trump narrowed that lead, with Harris winning just 56% of the vote to Trump’s 44%.

The largest swing of any county in New York towards Trump occurred in Torres’s Bronx county, driven by the massive shift towards Republicans among Latino voters.

A poll in September showed that Hochul had just a 34% job approval rating, and in 2022 she defeated then-congressman Lee Zeldin by just 6 percentage points, the worst performance by a Democrat in a statewide race in two decades.

Since taking his seat in Congress in 2021, Torres, 36, has been widely lauded by the Jewish community for his vocal efforts to combat Jew-hatred and his support for Israel in the House.

“I see my freedom as a Black Latino from the Bronx as inextricably bound to the freedom of the Jewish people,” Torres told pro-Israel rally-goers after he was awarded the Jewish Federations of North America’s Courageous Leadership Award earlier this month.

Though Torres has not directly criticized New York City Mayor Eric Adams by name in the way that he has called out Hochul, Torres could also make a run for Gracie Mansion in the 2025 election as Adams fights federal bribery charges.

A spokesman for Torres told JNS that “the congressman has yet to make a final decision regarding his future” as to whether he planned to announce a run for mayor or governor.

The post Pro-Israel Stalwart Ritchie Torres Hints at Run for New York Governor first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

European Union governments cannot pick and choose whether to execute arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court against two Israeli leaders and a Hamas commander, the EU’s foreign policy chief said on Saturday.

The ICC issued the warrants on Thursday against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri, for alleged crimes against humanity.

All EU member states are signatories to the ICC’s founding treaty, called the Rome Statute.

Several EU states have said they will meet their commitments under the statute if needed, but Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has invited Netanyahu to visit his country, assuring him he would face no risks if he did so.

“The states that signed the Rome convention are obliged to implement the decision of the court. It’s not optional,” Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, said during a visit to Cyprus for a workshop of Israeli and Palestinian peace activists.

Those same obligations were also binding on countries aspiring to join the EU, he said.

“It would be very funny that the newcomers have an obligation that current members don’t fulfil,” he told Reuters.

The United States rejected the ICC’s decision and Israel said the ICC move was antisemitic.

“Every time someone disagrees with the policy of one Israeli government – (they are) being accused of antisemitism,” said Borrell, whose term as EU foreign policy chief ends this month. “I have the right to criticize the decisions of the Israeli government, be it Mr. Netanyahu or someone else, without being accused of antisemitism. This is not acceptable. That’s enough.”

In their decision, the ICC judges said there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant were criminally responsible for acts including murder, persecution and starvation as a weapon of war as part of a “widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza”.

The warrant for Masri lists charges of mass killings during the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. Israel says it has killed Masri.

The post ICC Warrants Are Binding, EU Cannot Pick and Choose, EU’s Borrell Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has received an onslaught of criticism from anti-Israel progressives over her decision to vote in favor of a resolution “condemning the rise of global antisemitism.”

On Wednesday, Ocasio-Cortez supported House Resolution 1449, which affirms the State Department-endorsed “global guidelines for countering antisemitism.” The resolution passed the House by a 388-21 margin. 

Ocasio-Cortez, who commonly goes by the nickname “AOC,” voted opposite three fellow members of the so-called “Squad” — a cohort of progressive Democrats with left-wing positions on issues ranging from foreign policy to economics. Reps. Cori Bush (D-MO), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) — all stalwart anti-Israel voices in Congress — voted against the resolution, along with a handful of Republicans.

In the face of progressive backlash, Ocasio-Cortez took to Bluesky, a social media website, to explain her decision to vote in favor of the resolution. She implored her followers to “read the text of this bill” and emphasized that it is not “an IHRA bill.” The left-wing congresswoman clarified that she would “NEVER vote for codifying IHRA.”

She added that a “subclause references a separate [State Department] guideline which noncomittally references IHRA” and that it is “nonbinding.” The congresswoman minimized the bill as a right-wing attempt “to get the left infighting.”

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), an intergovernmental organization comprising dozens of countries including the US and Israel, adopted a non-legally binding “working definition” of antisemitism in 2016. Since then, the definition has been widely accepted by Jewish groups and well over 1,000 global entities, from countries to companies. The US State Department, the European Union, and the United Nations all use it.

According to the definition, antisemitism “is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

IHRA provides 11 specific, contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere. Beyond classic antisemitic behavior associated with the likes of the medieval period and Nazi Germany, the examples include denial of the Holocaust and newer forms of antisemitism targeting Israel such as demonizing the Jewish state, denying its right to exist, and holding it to standards not expected of any other democratic state.

Opponents of the IHRA definition of antisemitism assert that it exists as a pretext for governments and institutions to silence anti-Israel criticism and squash pro-Palestine activism.

Despite Ocasio-Cortez’s reassurances that she does not support the definition, anti-Israel progressives still condemned the congresswoman for “normalizing” it. They also blasted the lawmaker for her previous overtures to the Jewish community, such as participating in an online event with the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a liberal pro-Israel organization. 

“This absolute goddamn fraud voted for HR 1449 tonight, which further cements criticism of Israel as antisemitic under the law, and will encourage more mass arrests on campus, defunding charities, and strangling aid to Gaza,” wrote one X/Twitter user about Ocasio-Cortez.

“AOC’s vote for HR 1449 hurts. This definition of antisemitism — one that condemns accusations of Israel as ‘racist’ or ‘colonial’ — leaves no room for anti-Zionist Jews,” wrote another X/Twitter user.

Meanwhile, the virulently anti-Israel publication The Electronic Intifada published a story on Ocasio-Cortez’s vote with the headline, “AOC votes to back Israel lobby’s bogus ‘antisemitism’ definition.”

Over the past year, Ocasio-Cortez has stoked ire from anti-Israel progressives over her attempts to balance her harsh repudiations of the Jewish state with expressions of empathy for victims of antisemitism. She sparked outrage from progressives in August when she posed for a photo with the parent of an American taken hostage by the Hamas terrorist group during its massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7.

However, Ocasio-Cortez also drew outrage for pro-Israel activists on Sunday when she denounced the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the foremost pro-Israel lobbying group in the US, as an “overly influenced by a special interest group pushing a wildly unpopular agenda.” Her commentary on AIPAC, which came a couple weeks after US Vice President Kamala Harris’s loss in the presidential election, drew accusations of antisemitism from some critics.

The global guidelines endorsed by HR 1449 praise the IHRA definition as “an important internationally recognized instrument” and urge governments and political leaders to take certain steps to address the global surge in antisemitism since Hamas’s invasion of Israel last October.

The post Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Slammed by Progressives After Voting for Resolution Condemning ‘Global Antisemitism’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.