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NY Rep. Bowman calls meeting on antisemitism amid sharp criticism from Jewish constituents ahead of potential primary
(New York Jewish Week) – Rep. Jamaal Bowman, the progressive New York Democrat, is asking his Jewish constituents to attend a meeting to discuss antisemitism as criticism of his stance on Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza has bolstered a potential primary challenge against him.
The meeting, which his office called “Healing breakfast: Fighting antisemitism and hate,” will be held at Bowman’s office in White Plains on Monday morning.
An invitation was sent out to some local Jewish leaders on Friday, but some of the invitees are ridiculing the effort. Rabbi Evan Hoffman, the head of the Westchester Board of Rabbis, called the meeting “laughable.”
“Nobody’s going,” said Hoffman, the leader of the Orthodox Congregation Anshe Sholom in New Rochelle. “The relationship with the congressman has hit rock bottom, and he knows it, we know it. There’s no point in dancing around it anymore.”
Bowman has elicited pushback locally and nationally over his calls for a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas, including from Jewish constituents. He has condemned Hamas and a rally appearing to support its attack; he has also demanded the release of the terror group’s hostages and decried antisemitism. But he is also a member of the “Squad,” the group of progressive Democrats that has directed harsh criticism at Israel both before and since Oct. 7.
Bowman co-sponsored an Oct. 16 resolution from fellow progressive Rep. Cori Bush calling for an “immediate ceasefire.” The resolution did not mention Hamas, terrorism or Israeli hostages, and Bowman’s backing drew condemnation from the Westchester Board of Rabbis, which said the resolution denied Israel the right to defend itself while Hamas held hostages and drew false equivalence between the two sides.
Bowman was one of just 10 members of Congress to vote against a resolution “Standing with Israel as it defends itself against the barbaric war launched by Hamas and other terrorists.” He likewise voted against a resolution condemning support in campuses for terror groups including Hamas.
Bowman was elected to Congress in 2020 after defeating a long-term Democratic pro-Israel incumbent, Eliot Engel, in a primary. Unlike other members of the Squad, including Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rahida Tlaib, Bowman at first tried to walk a cautious line on Israel policy. He traveled to Israel in 2021 on a trip organized by the liberal Israel lobby J Street, drawing fire from the left, and quit the Democratic Socialists of America after the trip.
J Street had endorsed Bowman before Oct. 7. The group told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Oct. 24 that it was not withdrawing that endorsement.
The discord over those stances in his district could bolster the prospects for a challenge from George Latimer, the popular county executive in Westchester, who has said he will make an announcement on a potential run this month; Bowman’s current term ends on Jan. 3, 2025.
Bowman’s 16th congressional district is located north of New York City, though it also covers a small part of the Bronx. It is home to a significant Jewish population, and is around half Black and Latino.
More than two dozen rabbis in Bowman’s district, including Hoffman, wrote a letter to Latimer nine days after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, urging him to challenge Bowman due to the incumbent’s “effort to erode support for Israel on Capitol Hill and within the Democratic Party.”
Rabbi Jonathan E. Blake of the Westchester Reform Temple, who also signed the letter, said that Bowman’s approach to the war appeared to be at odds with most of Westchester’s Jewish community.
“The overwhelmingly shared sentiment is that the Jewish voters in Representative Bowman’s district do not believe that his policy and messages on Israel reflect their own views,” Blake said.
Hoffman feels that that tension predated Oct. 7. Ahead of the war, he said, Bowman was “unresponsive to our requests and our needs and developed an adversarial relationship with us.”
On Thursday, Bowman posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he had been in daily contact with Jewish constituents “and they do not want their pain exploited by the right wing to justify even more civilian deaths.” Following the rabbis’ letter criticizing Bowman, and another missive urging Latimer to mount a challenge, several dozen Jewish community members calling themselves “Jews for Jamaal” wrote a counter letter, expressing support for the congressman and urging Latimer against running.
Micah Sifry, one of the lead signatories on that letter, said he had been invited to the meeting on Monday and planned to attend.
“I don’t think anybody has actually polled so it’s hard to know, so probably everyone is touching a different piece of the larger picture,” he said regarding Jewish support in the district for Bowman. “It’s no secret that there’s a wide range of opinions in the Jewish community.”
Sifry said Bowman distributed his contact information to community members and had been responsive to requests, but may struggle to keep up with the volume of messages he receives.
Bowman’s office did not respond to a request for further information about the Monday meeting, including who would be attending, what would be discussed and what prompted the event.
Blake, a member of the Westchester Jewish Council, an umbrella group, and the Westchester Board of Rabbis, said that he was not aware of Bowman’s office approaching either group, did not know who Bowman was speaking to in the Jewish community, and had not received an invitation to the Monday meeting.
Hoffman said he had received a brief phone call from Bowman last month, and that the congressman’s Jewish supporters represented a “very small fraction” of the community.
“I believe that he uses this language as a fig leaf,” Blake said of Bowman’s claim that he had been speaking daily with Jewish constituents, “to cover the plain fact that his relationship with the mainstream Jewish community in his district is badly strained at this time.”
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The post NY Rep. Bowman calls meeting on antisemitism amid sharp criticism from Jewish constituents ahead of potential primary appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel Strikes Houthi Targets in Yemen
Smoke rises after Israeli strikes near Sanaa airport, in Sanaa, Yemen, Dec. 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
Israel struck multiple targets linked to the Iran-aligned Houthi terrorist group in Yemen on Thursday, including Sanaa International Airport, and Houthi media said three people were killed.
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he was about to board a plane at the airport when it came under attack. A crew member on the plane was injured, he said in a statement.
The Israeli military said that in addition to striking the airport, it also hit military infrastructure at the ports of Hodeidah, Salif, and Ras Kanatib on Yemen’s west coast. It also attacked the country’s Hezyaz and Ras Kanatib power stations.
Houthi-run Al Masirah TV said two people were killed in the strikes on the airport and one person was killed in the port hits, while 11 others were wounded in the attacks.
There was no comment from the Houthis, who have repeatedly fired drones and missiles towards Israel in what they describe as acts of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said following the attacks that Israel will continue its mission until it is complete: “We are determined to sever this terror arm of Iran’s axis.”
The prime minister has been strengthened at home by the Israeli military’s campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon and by its destruction of most of the Syrian army’s strategic weapons.
The Israeli attacks on the airport, Hodeidah and on one power station, were also reported by Al Masirah TV.
Tedros said he had been in Yemen to negotiate the release of detained UN staff detainees and to assess the humanitarian situation in Yemen.
“As we were about to board our flight from Sanaa … the airport came under aerial bombardment. One of our plane’s crew members was injured,” he said in a statement.
“The air traffic control tower, the departure lounge — just a few meters from where we were — and the runway were damaged,” he said, adding that he and his colleagues were safe.
There was no immediate comment from Israel on the incident.
More than a year of Houthi attacks have disrupted international shipping routes, forcing firms to re-route to longer and more expensive journeys that have in turn stoked fears over global inflation.
The UN Security Council is due to meet on Monday over Houthi attacks against Israel, Israel‘s UN Ambassador Danny Danon said on Wednesday.
On Saturday, Israel‘s military failed to intercept a missile from Yemen that fell in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa area, injuring 14 people.
The post Israel Strikes Houthi Targets in Yemen first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Controversial Islamic Group CAIR Chides US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew for Denying Report of ‘Famine’ in Gaza
US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew. Photo: Alchetron.
The Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) has condemned US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew for casting doubt on a new report claiming that famine has gripped northern Gaza.
The controversial Muslim advocacy group on Wednesday slammed Lew for his “callous dismissal” of the recent Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) report accusing Israel of inflicting famine on the Gaza Strip. The organization subsequently asserted that Israel had perpetrated an ethnic cleansing campaign in northern Gaza.
“Ambassador Lew’s callous dismissal of this shocking report by a US-backed agency exposing Israel’s campaign of forced starvation in Gaza reminds one of the old joke about a man who murdered his parents and then asked for mercy because he is now an ‘orphan,’” CAIR said in a statement.
“To reject a report on starvation in northern Gaza by appearing to boast about the fact that it has been successfully ethnically cleansed of its native population is just the latest example of Biden administration officials supporting, enabling, and excusing Israel’s clear and open campaign of genocide in Gaza,” the Washington, DC-based group continued.
On Monday, FEWS Net, a US-created provider of warning and analysis on food insecurity, released a report detailing that a famine had allegedly taken hold of northern Gaza. The report argued that 65,000-75,000 individuals remain stranded in the area without sufficient access to food.
“Israel’s near-total blockade of humanitarian and commercial food supplies to besieged areas of North Gaza Governorate” has resulted in mass starvation among scores of innocent civilians in the beleaguered enclave, the report stated.
Lew subsequently issued a statement denying the veracity of the FEWS Net report, slamming the organization for peddling “inaccurate” information and “causing confusion.”
“The report issued today on Gaza by FEWS NET relies on data that is outdated and inaccurate. We have worked closely with the Government of Israel and the UN to provide greater access to the North Governorate, and it is now apparent that the civilian population in that part of Gaza is in the range of 7,000-15,000, not 65,000-75,000 which is the basis of this report,” Lew wrote.
“At a time when inaccurate information is causing confusion and accusations, it is irresponsible to issue a report like this. We work day and night with the UN and our Israeli partners to meet humanitarian needs — which are great — and relying on inaccurate data is irresponsible,” Lew continued.
Following Lew’s repudiation, FEWS NET quietly removed the report on Wednesday, sparking outrage among supporters of the pro-Palestinian cause.
“We ask FEWS NET not to submit to the bullying of genocide supporters and to again make its report available to the public,” CAIR said in its statement.
In the year following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, Israel has been repeatedly accused of inflicting famine in Hamas-ruled Gaza. Despite the allegations, there is scant evidence of mass starvation across the war-torn enclave.
This is not the first time that FEWS Net has attempted to accuse Israel of inflicting famine in Gaza. In June, the United Nations Famine Review Committee (FRC), a panel of experts in international food security and nutrition, rejected claims by FEWS Net that a famine had taken hold of northern Gaza. In rejecting the allegations, the FRC cited an “uncertainty and lack of convergence of the supporting evidence employed in the analysis.”
Meanwhile, CAIR has been embroiled in controversy since the onset of the Gaza war last October.
CAIR has been embroiled in controversy since the Oct. 7 atrocities. The head of CAIR, for example, said he was “happy” to witness Hamas’s rampage across southern Israel.
“The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege — the walls of the concentration camp — on Oct. 7,” CAIR co-founder and executive director Nihad Awad said in a speech during the American Muslims for Palestine convention in Chicago in November. “And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land, and walk free into their land, which they were not allowed to walk in.”
CAIR has long been a controversial organization. In the 2000s, it was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case. Politico noted in 2010 that “US District Court Judge Jorge Solis found that the government presented ‘ample evidence to establish the association’” of CAIR with Hamas.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “some of CAIR’s current leadership had early connections with organizations that are or were affiliated with Hamas.” CAIR has disputed the accuracy of the ADL’s claim and asserted that it “unequivocally condemn[s] all acts of terrorism, whether carried out by al-Qa’ida, the Real IRA, FARC, Hamas, ETA, or any other group designated by the US Department of State as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization.’”
The post Controversial Islamic Group CAIR Chides US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew for Denying Report of ‘Famine’ in Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jewish Civil Rights Group Representing Amsterdam Pogrom Victims Slams Dutch Court for ‘Light Sentences’
Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters are guarded by police after violence targeting Israeli football fans broke out in Amsterdam overnight, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, November 8, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ami Shooman/Israel Hayom
The international Jewish civil rights organization legally representing more than 50 victims of the attack on Israeli soccer fans that took place in Amsterdam last month has joined many voices in lambasting a Dutch court for what they described as a mild punishment for the attackers.
“These sentences are an insult to the victims and a stain on the Dutch legal system,” The Lawfare Project’s founder and executive director Brooke Goldstein said in a statement on Wednesday. “Allowing individuals who coordinated and celebrated acts of violence to walk away with minimal consequences diminishes the rule of law and undermines trust in the judicial process. If this is the response to such blatant antisemitism, what hope is there for deterring future offenders or safeguarding the Jewish community.”
On Tuesday, a district court in Amsterdam sentenced five men for their participation in the violent attacks in the Dutch city against fans of the Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv. The premeditated and coordinated violence took place on the night of Nov. 7 and into the early hours of Nov 8, before and after Maccabi Tel Aviv competed against the Dutch soccer team Ajax in a UEFA Europa League match. The five suspects were sentenced to up to 100 hours of community service and up to six months in prison.
The attackers were found guilty of public violence, which included kicking an individual lying on the ground, and inciting the violence by calling on members of a WhatsApp group chat to gather and attack Maccabi Tel Aviv fans. One man sentenced on Tuesday who had a “leading role” in the violence, according to prosecutors, was given the longest sentence — six months in prison.
“As someone who witnessed these trials firsthand, I am deeply disheartened by the leniency of these sentences,” added Ziporah Reich, director of litigation at The Lawfare Project. “The violent, coordinated attacks against Jews in Amsterdam are among the worst antisemitic incidents in Europe. These light sentences fail to reflect the gravity of these crimes and do little to deliver justice to the victims who are left traumatized and unheard. Even more troubling, they set a dangerous precedent, signaling to future offenders that such horrific acts of violence will not be met with serious consequences.”
The Lawfare Project said on Wednesday that it is representing over 50 victims of the Amsterdam attacks. It has also secured for their clients a local counsel — Peter Plasman, who is a partner at the Amsterdam-based law firm Kötter L’Homme Plasman — to represent them in the Netherlands. The Lawfare Project aims to protect the civil and human rights of Jewish people around the world through legal action.
Others who have criticized the Dutch court for its sentencing of the five men on Tuesday included Arsen Ostrovsky, a leading human rights attorney and CEO of The International Legal Forum; Tal-Or Cohen, the founder and CEO of CyberWell; and The Center for Information and Documentation on Israel.
The post Jewish Civil Rights Group Representing Amsterdam Pogrom Victims Slams Dutch Court for ‘Light Sentences’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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