This silence isn’t particularly surprising: The backlash that has become standard for any politician who speaks out against Israel disincentivizes criticism of the status quo. (Just before this news bulletin went out, hours after deadline, Schumer’s office did send me a form response that appears to be intended for a constituent expressing opposition to aid to Israel, rather than a direct response to my inquiry on Sheikh Jarrah.) Despite multiple days’ notice, with one last-minute exception, none of these members of Congress provided any kind of comment in response to my inquiries. Ann Wagner, who, along with Senate Foreign Relations Committee Democrat Cory Booker, is forming a new caucus to celebrate the Abraham Accords, the Trump administration-brokered peace agreement between Israel and several Arab states. Ritchie Torres and Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Tammy Baldwin, Elizabeth Warren, and Dianne Feinstein House Committee on Foreign Affairs leader Gregory Meeks House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and outspoken Israel advocates like Reps. Jan Schakowsky, Jamie Raskin, Alan Lowenthal, Ro Khanna, and Pramila Japayal, and Sens. I directly reached out to the offices of 25 additional representatives and senators (with one exception, I excluded Republicans, given the party’s near-blanket disinterest in any kind of anti-occupation politics), including every single Democratic member of the Senate Foreign Relations committee J Street-aligned politicians like Reps. Only a handful of members of Congress-including frequent occupation critics Mark Pocan, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Marie Newman, and Cori Bush and J-Street stalwarts Andy Levin and Jackie Speier, all of whom are Democrats-tweeted condemnations of Israel’s actions against the Salhiye family, which, The New York Times reported, marked at least the tenth instance of evictions or demolitions of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem so far this month. (For historical background on the threatened expulsions in Sheikh Jarrah, you can revisit our answers to readers’ questions from last spring.) But even many of the Democrats who spoke out at the height of last year’s violence have been conspicuously silent on the brutal actions taking place in a country to which the US sends $3.8 billion annually in military aid. Last week, on January 19th, Israeli police violently expelled two branches of the Salhiye family from their homes before demolishing them to make way for a local school. While the vast majority of members of Congress, especially on the Republican side but also among Democrats, condemned Hamas and had nothing to say about the injustice confronting Palestinians, an unprecedented number of elected progressives did call out Israel’s occupation and the intense violence that regularly enforces it.Įight months later, Sheikh Jarrah’s ordeal remains ongoing. In May 2021, when the threat of forced expulsion of Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem kicked off a wave of Palestinian popular protest-followed by Israeli police crackdowns, Hamas rocket fire, and Israel’s brutal bombing of Gaza-politicians across the United States issued statements about the crisis. (This article originally appeared in the Jewish Currents email newsletter subscribe here!)
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