Pro-Israel Lobbying

Voting History

House 888 Resolution:

House Resolution 888 presents an incredibly biased, whitewashed and revisionist history of the state of Israel and its brutal occupation, 75+ year ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and current assault while also undermining the fight against antisemitism by declaring a range of legitimate, pro-justice political positions antisemitic.

The conflation of anti-Israeli sentiments with anti-Semitism in official American law represents a dangerous conflation of political critique with racial and religious prejudice. Such legislation is heinous and deplorable for both Palestinians and Jews alike for several reasons.

By equating anti-Israeli sentiments with anti-Semitism, such laws effectively erase the Palestinian narrative and deny their legitimate grievances. Palestinians have endured decades of displacement, discrimination, and violence at the hands of the Israeli state. By criminalizing criticism of Israel, these laws contribute to the dehumanization of Palestinians and perpetuate their marginalization on the global stage.

In fact, these laws serve to whitewash the history of Israel’s creation and ongoing occupation of Palestinian lands. The state of Israel was established through the expulsion and dispossession of indigenous Palestinians, a fact that is well-documented and verified by historical evidence. By censoring discussion of this history, such laws prevent a nuanced understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian assault and hinder efforts towards reconciliation and justice.

Not to mention, such a resolution undermines legitimate criticism of Israeli policies and actions by equating it with hatred towards Jewish people as a whole. This not only stifles freedom of speech and expression but also perpetuates the false notion that criticism of the Israeli government is inherently anti-Semitic. In reality, many Jews themselves oppose the actions of the Israeli state and support Palestinian rights.

Moreover, the perpetuation of the very harmful and dangerous narrative that being critical of the Israeli government is tantamount to denying the Holocaust or supporting genocidal ideologies is a false equivalence that not only distorts the truth but also diminishes the severity of actual anti-Semitic acts and beliefs, which should be unequivocally condemned.

By affirming Israel’s right to exist, despite the state having been founded on the ethnic cleansing and erasure of Palestinian identity, heritage, culture and statehood, this bill perpetuates the Zionist ideology that the destruction of Palestine is both acceptable and justified.

Conflating Zionism with Judaism:

While the Jewish faith and cultural identity not only long predate and but have no inherent connection to the racist political ideology of Zionism, the modern Israeli regime has deliberately pursued an ethnic supremacist agenda rooted in Jewish ethno-religious identity — yet built upon the demolition of Palestinian homes, the theft of Palestinian lands and the generational uprooting, displacement and dehumanization of the Palestinian people at large.

The harrowing cost of human suffering, loss of life and deprivation of the most basic liberties and security has been unconscionable and now, Zionism represents an utterly deplorable ethnic supremacist ideology that has enabled unconscionable acts of violence, displacement and subjugation against the Palestinian people for almost a century.

Its real-world impacts have been nothing short of a calculated campaign of ethnic cleansing, cultural erasure and apartheid racism - a horrific legacy that cannot be decoupled from Zionism's founding vision of creating an exclusionary Jewish ethno-state through the denial of Palestinian self-determination and indigeneity.

The forced expulsion of over 700,000 Palestinians from their ancestral homes and villages during the Nakba, rendering millions stateless and exiled as refugees, was an act of premeditated ethnic purging. With the willful destruction of Palestinian property, demolition of homes, uprooting of ancient olive groves, and obliteration of cultural resources further demonstrating a systematic effort to erase Palestinian identity, history and any enduring claims to the land.

Subsequent decades have seen this brutal ethnic persecution, land confiscation and denial of human rights institutionalized through severely discriminatory policies, illegal settlements, violence by occupying forces, arbitrary detentions, torture, and most notably, systemic oppression under Israel's racist apartheid regime.

These are not mere "realities" for Palestinians who remain, but grave crimes against humanity perpetrated through Zionism's new brand of unrelenting, institutionalized cruelty. This utterly shameful legacy of calculated ethnic cleansing, apartheid governance and flagrant violations of international law is inextricably intertwined with how Zionism's racist, supremacist and anti-democratic ideology has been implemented on the ground by Israel.

Any attempt to decouple or whitewash these egregious atrocities from Zionism itself is a form of explicit denialism and complicity in oppression of the highest order. No ethnic, religious or any other group deserves an ethno-supremacist theocratic state constructed through the forcible subjugation of indigenous populations as second-class citizens stripped of all rights, dignity and humanity.

Such an abhorrent exclusionary system based on racial hierarchy is fundamentally incompatible with even the barest notion of true democracy, self-determination or universal human rights regardless of ethnicity or faith.

Statehood, sovereignty and self-determination can never legitimately emerge from such systematic violence, discrimination, forced displacement and ethnic persecution as political Zionism has perpetrated against the Palestinian population.

If a state were to arise organically through democratic processes that enshrine equality, safety and liberty for all citizens regardless of ethnicity or faith, it would have legitimacy. But any racist system of ethnic domination erected through brute force subjugation and calculated ethnic supremacy, as Zionism has done, is an egregious affront to justice and human rights that requires being dismantled - not enshrined - with a new equitable path forward established.