I got this Algemeiner link from reader Norm, who added:
Far-left representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives are calling for a cease fire in “occupied Palestine.” These representatives seem not to understand that Gaza has been a self-governing entity since 2005–occupied by Hamas. Or, perhaps they do know this and are referring the entire region “from the River to the Sea” as “occupied” Palestine. If the former, they are woefully misinformed. If the latter, they are antisemites who are calling for the elimination of the Jews of the region.
Click below to see the article, and below that to see the resolution itself:
An excerpt from the article, which you see takes Israel’s side. But it does give information about the sponsors:
Seven members of the so-called “Squad” of far left members of the US House joined with a number of fellow progressive Democrats on Monday to introduce a resolution calling for an “an immediate deescalation and cease-fire in Israel and occupied Palestine.”
Led by Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), the resolution notes that, since Hamas’ surprise invasion of Israel last weekend, “armed violence has claimed the lives of over 2,700 Palestinians and over 1,400 Israelis” and urges US President Joe Biden to call for a ceasefire and send humanitarian aid to Gaza.
The resolution does not mention Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group in control of Gaza, by name or single it out for responsibility for the Oct. 7 slaughter of 1,400 people in Israel. It also accepts without question the casualty figures of the Gaza-based Palestinian Health Ministry, which is controlled by Hamas and typically includes terrorists in its publicly announced death tolls.
The resolution also makes no mention of the more than 150 hostages believed to be being held by Hamas in Gaza.
Bush was joined by 12 co-sponsors, among them several of Israel’s most consistent critics in the House of Representatives including Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), Chuy Garcia (D-IL), and André Carson (D-IN).
The resolution is also endorsed by dozens of activist groups including the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), Black Lives Matter Global Network, and the Transgender Law Center.
In her comments on the resolution, Bush did not mention Hamas, but she did claim that Gaza was part of “Occupied Palestine.”
But read the short resolution below, and judge for yourself. Clearly “occupied Palestine” refers to Gaza, which is not occupied: Israel hasn’t set food on the Strip since 2005, when it gave up the territory to civilians. (If you call prohibiting the importation of material that could be used for weapons or digging tunnels, that’s “wisdom,” not “occupation.”
And yes, the resolution should have mentioned the Hamas attack that set off this conflagration.
But the real aim of this resolution, I suspect, despite its not to “all human life is precious,” is to get Israel from stopping attacks on Gaza. Then it will be business as usual, with Israel pulling back to its borders and with Hamas continuing to fire dozens of rockets into Israel.
Does anybody think that this resolution will stop Hamas from its terrorist attacks? I doubt it; it is aimed at getting Israel to stop defending itself by going into Gaza. The Biden administration does, of course, have some ability to influence Israels actions, but for Hamas it has none.
I still maintain that most of the squad is anti-Semitic and wants Israel to disappear.
Given the sentiments of Congress, there is zero chance of this passing. The bill just serves to show that the usual suspects
Here’s a video of a CNN reporter interviewing AOC. It’s taken from RealClearPolitics (posted by the Republicans), and they also have a transcript of her remarks. AOC seems a bit befuddled at times, but the reporter does a good job. Her conclusion: “Israel shouldn’t do anything until we tell them what to do and, anyway, it’s complicated!”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spends almost three minutes trying to explain her calls for a "ceasefire" after Hamas terrorists brutally massacred innocent Israelis and it does not go well pic.twitter.com/qkQ30jSIuG
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) October 17, 2023
Insanity. A cease-fire bill aimed at Israel which Hamas will not honor.
It will be months, or years, until there is a negotiated ceasefire and then it will be broken by Hamas or whatever group replaces them.
“Calling for an immediate deescalation and cease-fire in Israel and occupied Palestine.”
The very first line seems to have been written by someone with no knowledge of the situation or of the history—probably an intern. Since Gaza has been a self-governing entity since 2005, it is neither part of “occupied Palestine” nor part of Israel. Consequently, the resolution as written doesn’t even apply to Gaza.
At least the sponsors recognize Israel as a state (or pretend to) and are not calling for its eradication. (Sigh of relief.)
How could anyone vote for (what is in my view) such a mixed up resolution? It’s so bad that it’s not even wrong. (Phrase appropriated from Wolfgang Pauli, supposedly.)
Of course the resolution doesn’t apply to Gaza, it is meant to apply only to Israel. All Progressives understand that rockets and incendiary devices flying from Gaza into Israel are not acts of war, but a kind of natural phenomenon, like bad weather. The Hamas mass terror attacks in Israel on October 7 are not mentioned at all, because they are so hard to classify as bad weather.
It’s all moot anyway. There is no speaker – Jordan lost a couple of votes in the second round compared to yesterday. Without a speaker the house can’t vote on a resolution. And I doubt this one would go down well even if they could.
This is what the NYTimes…..printed early on…So next time you hear about its awesome fact-checking remember this picture.
“I didn’t even think about that. NYT used a picture from a completely different location while (falsely) blaming the strike on Israel because the hospital location doesn’t have any destroyed buildings.”
https://twitter.com/AGHamilton29/status/1714637309763539148
And this:
“Extraordinary statement, signed at moment by 75 full-time @CUNY
faculty, describing the Hamas massacre of civilians as a “military operation”:
“[T]here is also no equivalence between the October 7 military operation by Hamas [and] subsequent military attack by the Israeli state.”
https://twitter.com/kcjohnson9/status/1714414109255446997
Notice how many of the signatories are from the “expected fields”. Contrast it with the signatories for the Harvard open letter that calls out Claudine Gay, which leans more towards STEM.
She talks about “collective punishment” and “indiscriminate attacks”. She talks about an alternative of targeting Hamas. I would like to know what information she has that makes her think that. Israel said from the very beginning that they were going to attack Hamas leadership, weapons storage and manufacture, etc. And we know that they do place those in areas where attacking them will cause civilian casualties. She doesn’t back up her characterization of the attacks. And she has never impressed me with her military acumen.
I think it’s likely that the “occupied” language in reference to Gaza relies on the fact that the United Nations still considers the Gaza Strip to be under Israeli military occupation. See footnote 5 of this Wikipedia article for the explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_disengagement_from_Gaza
Sorry for all the comments, but just saw this…..Is the hospital intact and the episode of the hundreds of deaths a hamas fabrication?
“We now have video of the scene showing the explosion is from the parking lot and the buildings are in tact. There is no crater, no building demolished. This is inconsistent with the type of bomb many were suggesting yesterday.”
https://twitter.com/AGHamilton29/status/1714561416298914276
Yes, the missile parts hit the hospital’s parking lot and the hospital doesn’t seem damaged at all. Judging from the damage: some burned cars, the loss of life couldn’t have been anywhere near the 500 claimed by Hamas; and I’ve very happy about that. Hamas simply lied about the damage and about the deaths; they are reprehensible liars.
What does “occupied Palestine” mean? Actually, there are many Jewish settlements in “occupied” Palestine (West Bank and East Jerusalem), and a big chunk of Israelis (probably about 1/3 of all Israelis, based on Pew Research data, and about half of secular Israelis) thinks they are a bad idea. I think it’s unlikely these Israelis are anti-semitic, don’t you?
There is actually nuance on the topic of settlements, and not everyone who opposes settlements in the West Bank is a raging bigot. Many-probably most-of the Jewish settlers in the West bank are right-wing, Haredi or Dati religious zealots who believe that Jewish settlement of that area is justified-in fact, mandated- by the Torah. To oppose their fundamentalist logic is not necessarily to call for their “elimination.” You can absolutely agree that Hamas (another fundamentalist outfit) terrorism is “unadulterated evil” and still think that settlements in the West Bank are bad policy for Israel and the region.
Just trying to get past the lizard-brain name calling (“colonizer!”, “anti-semite!”) and see what real issues exist that reasonable people might disagree on.
“… who believe that Jewish settlement of that area is justified-in fact, mandated- by the Torah. ”
It might be mandated by the Torah, but Jewish settlement of that area IS justified, indeed encouraged, according to the Mandate for Palestine, which is still valid International law. Settlements are also regulated by the Oslo agreements, and Jewish settlements in proper territories are allowed. And please note that the Oslo agreements did NOT transfer sovereign ownership of Palestinian settlement territories to the Palestinians. They still belong to Israel. So, the term “occupied Palestine” is a misnomer at best.
I don’t think there is an example of any place other than Israel where the outside world objects to legal settlement by citizens within the legal territory of their state. Indeed, there are multiple examples of the outside world not objecting to extra-legal settlements by citizens of aggressor countries.
Occupied Palestine is Israel proper. It’s a euphemism for eradicating Israel and Jews.
What might “Occupied Palestine” actually refer to?
As we all know, there are thousands of Jewish settlements in “occupied” Palestine (West Bank and East Jerusalem), and a big chunk of Israel (probably about 1/3 of all Israelis- and about half of secular Israelis) thinks they are a bad idea. I think it’s unlikely these Israelis who oppose settlements in the West Bank are anti-semitic, don’t you? There is actually nuance on the topic of settlements, and not everyone who opposes settlements in the West Bank is a raging bigot.
Many-probably most-of the Jewish settlers in the West bank are right-wing, Haredi or Dati religious zealots who believe that Jewish settlement of that area is justified, indeed decreed, by the Torah. To oppose their fundamentalist logic is not necessarily to call for their “elimination.” You can absolutely agree that Hamas (more fundamentalists) terrorism is “unadulterated evil” and still think that settlements in the West Bank are bad policy.
We can absolutely condemn Hamas while still trying to get past the Manichean us vs. them name calling (“colonizer!”, “anti-semite!”) and see what real issues exist that reasonable people might disagree on.
You’ve posted this statement twice.
I generally really like AOC, but here she proves that even good people have their bad sides.
I love how she exposes MAGAt liars, but I think in the Israel/Palestine case she is under the spell of obnoxious Sarsour, Tlaib, Omar, CAIR and the like.
I hope she will have a private chat with someone like Ayaan Hirshi Ali some day.
The far right should be ashamed of themselves and the far left should be ashamed of themselves. We should get rid of both.
If I were a US voter I’d have a difficulty whom to choose next time, because too many Republicans want to sell out Ukraine, too many Democrats want to sell out Israel, and too many on both sides sell out women.
Glad to see the interviewer of Ocasio-Cortez stayed on the issue and resisted Cortez’s attempts to evade.
There are a number of cases of territories that are either disputed or conquered and into into which the dominant country introduced a large number of its citizens. Han Chinese in Tibet and Moroccans in Western Sahara are the obvious current examples. There has been less attention to Karelia, which received an influx of Russians after its armed seizure from Finland by the USSR; and Estonia, which had a similar Russian influx after its was absorbed by the USSR. In each of these cases, not a whisper of objection has ever been heard from Left organizations—in which the term “settler” is now reserved exclusively for the single category of Israelis in the disputed territories, and sometimes for Israelis in Israel.
I certainly found this helpful – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Palestine
We need to come up with a word other than progressive to describe these extremist leftists. Regressive Left has been tried and in some respects rings true, but doesn’t do justice to some of their neo-racist, anti-science, anti-evidence (when it suits them) beliefs.
Let’s put our thinking caps on.
“Pop-Left” fits the present deformation of the Leftist outlook, just as it fit previous cases. Or, as an alternative, how about “comic book Left”? Either term has the virtue of applying across history, to a phenomenon evidently as reproducible as a physics experiment.
The situation in Gaza is NOT complex as far as understanding the only reasonable choice available to Israel: defend itself by destroying Hamas. There is nothing else to negotiate; no one else will eliminate Hamas. Regardless of whether Israel attacks Gaza or not, there will be civilian casualities. It’s just a matter of which ones. They ONLY way permanently to stop civilian deaths on both sides and possibly to establish a peaceful coexistence is to endure the unavoidable and tragic civilian deaths in the short-term. I can barely contain my fury at anyone who proposes a cease-fire!
I think an immediate ceasefire followed by all those responsible for the attacks on Israeli civilians being brought to justice would be an excellent outcome.
There’s only one flaw: it’s not going to happen.
Even the isolationists and appeasers who actively opposed Lend-Lease in 1940-41 failed to propose a “ceasefire” after Pearl Harbor. The fact that Hamas’ latest rampage was against Jews may account for some of the difference, but not all of it. When the US went after Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, there was opposition from the usual suspects. Marjorie Cohn of the National Lawyers Guild explained that the UN had not authorized such US action, while Noam Chomsky and others lamented the possible civilian casualties. Their position was, in effect, to demand that the US observe a ceasefire after 9/11/01. In short, the “ceasefire” mentality is much more evident in this century than it was in 1941. I suppose this is Progress of a sort—unfortunate, though, that progress of this sort has not occurred among the zealots of Islamism, nor among other groups detectable in Russia.
The original plan to shut off electricity and supplies is surely collective punishment, no?
I am glad that has been walked back thanks to Biden’s influence, though at the present moment I believe the northern part of Gaza is still having these measures applied.
Is Israel justified in taking out Hamas? Absolutely. However, the way this thing is shaping up, it reminds me all too much of 9/11. Islamic terrorists attack innocent civilians. The U.S. wages massive retaliatory responses, and ultimately bin Laden was taken out by a single seal team. In the wake of our emotional reaction, there is close to a million dead and at least that many displaced. We have trillions in debt, had to fight off ISIS and the region still isn’t stable despite our efforts to “build democracy.”
Let’s strategically figure out how to take Hamas out, but let’s do it in a way that doesn’t lead to another quagmire that the last half century to century is littered with.