It ‘Felt’ Like the Jim Crow Era When I Visited West Bank, Congressman Says
New York Democrat also met with families of hostages taken by Hamas on October 7
Rep Jamaal Bowman put the conditions Palestinians are living under in the West Bank in historical terms Americans should be able to understand.
The New York Democrat recently also visited with the loved ones of Israeli hostages held in Gaza since Hamas militants captured them during the brutal October 7 attacks which sparked this latest round of violence in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, Bowman sought to put the growing disaffection young voters are feeling towards President Biden ahead of next year's presumed rematch against Republican Donald Trump.
Associated with the group of House progressives known as “the Squad,” Bowman has been one of those US lawmakers calling for a ceasefire in fighting which has engulfed Gaza which has killed some 14,000 Palestinian civilians along with about 1,400 Israelis since those surprise attacks on October 7.
Bowman described the conditions under which Palestinians are living that he observed during a trip to the neighboring Palestinian enclave in the West Bank that he took which was organized by J Street, the nonprofit liberal advocacy group based in the United States whose stated aim is to promote American leadership to end the Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts peacefully and diplomatically.
“Even before I went to the West Bank on my own — not on my own, but with J Street — I spoke to Israeli and Palestinian scholars over the phone just to learn more about it, and one of them, I forget his name, told me we're in this Civil Rights-era moment here in the West Bank. This is like Jim Crow,” he said, referring to the prominent Black American writer when he added, “And when I heard Ta-Nehisi Coates say that, I felt what he was saying because although I didn't live during Jim Crow — the Jim Crow South — I read about it.
“And when I went there, it felt that way. It felt suffocating, it felt stifling. It felt immobile,” Bowman said. “And again, for me, as a sitting member of Congress who has voted in support of the Iron Dome [Israeli defense system], right, so I felt what he was talking about there.”
Bowman earlier this month met with families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza.
“I am in awe of their strength, courage, and willingness to share their stories with me. They also impressed upon me the importance of keeping the hostages’ names and their stories at the forefront of our conversations around the conflict,” Bowman said, in part, in a prepared statement following that meeting. “As we consider policy solutions and other efforts to address the ongoing violence, I will remember three-year old Abigail whose parents were killed in the brutal attack on October 7 and who will come home an orphan. She is who I am thinking of today and every day.”
The congressman also addressed the recent hit Biden has taken in public opinion polling among young voters who could be critical to the president’s hopes for a second term.
“Well, it's gonna be tough and it is tough, because young voters were already upset over a variety of things, including how he's handled the climate issue,” Bowman said. “He’s done some good things, and it’s kind of playing a yo-yo with him. He does some good things, then they come in, and then he does something else that pushes them away.
“You know, and the response to the Israel-Gaza conflict, again, the one-sidedness of it has really turned young people away and the [Black , indigenous and people of color] community away as well, and so — and it’s not just the president. It’s Congress for the most part,” he added. “I mean, I’m in the small minority calling for a ceasefire. It's growing a bit, it started with six or eight, but now it’s up to 30, which is really good.
“But the president hasn’t done that and young people, they want peace, they want justice, they want a diplomatic response to what's going on. They want us to spend more money on education and jobs and climate and keeping people out of prison and health care than we spend on war,” Bowman added. “And this president, at the moment, is not showing the capacity to do that, and the party and the Congress — not just a party, whole of Congress — isn't showing the capacity to do that,” he said. “So I think it's a combination of all these things that's turning young people off.”
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