Progressives’ Israel bashing: Letters to the Editor

The Issue: Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s characterization of Israel as a “racist state” at a conference in Chicago

The claim by Rep. Pramila Jayapal that the state of Israel — the only modern, progressive democratic society in the Middle East — is a racist country, like South Africa before the end of apartheid, is undeniably an antisemitic blood libel (“Dems recoil at Israel dis,” July 18).

It is a false and calculated antisemitic trope, intended to demonize Israel and its supporters.

Jayapal, the Squad and the other neo-Marxists in the Democratic Party are bigots and antisemites.

It would be impossible for any of them to point to any other country in the region as an example of a real, functional democracy with the rule of law and civil rights for all.

Stanley Rubin

Fresh Meadows

The recent anti-Israel rhetoric in particular and woke cultural values in general lead mainstream Democratic Party members like me to question why we exactly remain registered Democrats.

What has become of the party of Scoop Jackson, Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale and, on a local level, Ed Koch or even John Lindsay?

Do Reps. Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib really speak for me or my interests? The time to reassess party affiliation is long overdue.

Yakov Moshe

Brooklyn

To the degree that Democrats rebuked Rep. Jayapal’s disgraceful slander about Israel being a racist state, they are to be commended.

However, their simultaneous call for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is still a sign of their failure to come to grips with reality.

That reality is one of unmitigated, implacable Palestinian hostility toward the existence of Israel under any circumstances whatsoever.

The Palestinians have turned down multiple generous offers of peace because those offers required peaceful coexistence with Israel, which Palestinians have sworn to abjure.

As a result, any Palestinian state with fully sovereign powers in any part of Judea, Samaria and Gaza would be a deadly threat to Israel.

A fully sovereign Palestinian state is therefore not a realistic or wise policy goal, and it’s about time the entire Democratic Party acknowledged this reality.

Daniel H. Trigoboff

Williamsville

If it’s not AOC, it’s Omar; if it’s not Omar, it’s Tlaib; if it’s not Tlaib, it’s Rep. Ayanna Pressley; if it’s not Pressley, it’s now Jayapal condemning Israel as a racist state.

So what is the one constant here?

It is the fact that elected Jewish members of Congress, such as Reps. Adam Schiff, Jerrold Nadler, and yes, the worst culprit of all, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, all sit idly by with their mouths shut, with barely a word of denunciation from any of them.

Instead, it takes Reps. Hakeem Jeffries, Katherine Clark and Pete Aguilar to show courage and a backbone to stand up for one our staunchest allies, and loudly declare that Israel is certainly not a racist state.

Alan Brooks

Brooklyn

One can only wonder how Jayapal and her progressive pals would act if Jews were in the minority in a Palestinian state.

Would the term “racist” still be utilized? Would they demand justice? I think not.

P. Cytrin

Forest Hills

“Progressives” need an intervention and a rehabilitation to cure themselves of their addiction to antisemitism.

Jayapal and the rest of the squad have turned progressivism into a synonym for reactionary antisemitism — the “socialism of fools,” in August Bebel’s famous quote.

David Rabinovitz

Brooklyn

In the article “Pol’s ‘racist’ Israel bash” (July 17) a journalist, Emily Schrader, is quoted as tweeting, “Someone should tell [Jayapal] that antisemitism ain’t progressive.”

That assertion simply is no longer the case. The fact is that only a declining minority of those who call themselves “progressive,” especially those active in the Democratic Party, think that way. The rising elements in that movement and party think the opposite and feel free to loudly and repeatedly say so.

David S. Levine

Hobe Sound, Fla.

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