Letter To Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY16) About Palestinian Support For Attacks

Email Rep. Jamaal Bowman
Mount Vernon Office (914) 371-9220, White Plains office (914) 323-5550, D.C. office (202) 225-2464

Rep. Bowman,

I understand that you are co-authoring a letter to President Biden “to investigate whether Israel is using U.S. weapons to commit human rights abuses against Palestinians.” In the current draft of the letter made available by Jewish Currents, you made reference to recent attacks in the West Bank as well as a claim that the “Israeli government’s anti-democratic mission to dismantle the rule of law… is attempting to destroy the independent Israeli judiciary.” You also claimed that there is an Israeli “military siege of Gaza.”

Allow me to give you information that you may have missed or decided to ignore.

The Palestinians poll themselves every quarter, something they have been doing since 2000. The latest poll came out on March 14, 2023¹ and details frightening sentiments of Palestinian Arabs about their Jewish neighbors:

68% support the formation of armed groups, such as the Lions’ Den, and 87% believe the Palestinian Authority (PA) does not have the right to arrest members of these groups
71% support the Palestinian point blank shooting of two Israeli brothers who drove into the town of of Huwara
61% of Palestinians support armed attacks against Israeli civilians inside of Israel
57% support the return to an “armed intifada”
Support for a two state solution stands at just 27%
If presidential elections were held, 52% would vote for the leader of the political-terrorist group Hamas

Those are the latest figures of the Palestinians polling themselves. It is because of that rejection of coexistence and preference for violent attacks that Israel launched a daytime raid into Nablus on February 22, to stop an upcoming terrorist attack. The Israeli defensive action killed nine terrorists and saved an untold number of lives – which your letter disgracefully omitted. Are you in favor of allowing terrorists to target and kill innocent Jewish civilians in Israel?

Even according to the biased United Nations reports, West Bank Arabs committed more attacks² than Israeli Jews living in Israeli territory of Area C in every month of 2022.

As for terrorist enclave of Gaza,³ the situation is more horrific. The territory is controlled by a US-designated foreign terrorist organization, Hamas.⁴ The March 2023 poll figures show that 36% and 31% “strongly support” and “support” armed attacks against Jews in Israel, respectively. A frightening 71% of Gazans support armed groups like the Lions’ Den and Jenin Battalion which do not take orders from the PA (question 40). Your inversion of this terrorist enclave to being the victims of an “Israeli military siege” is outrageous.

As to the assertion that Israel is “pushing repressive, anti-democratic policies,” let me remind you that Israel held five in elections in the past four years. This in a region that doesn’t hold any, including the PA, where the president’s four-year term ran out in 2009, fourteen years ago. Further, after each Israeli election, there was a peaceful transition of power, more than can be said for these United States.

Currently hundreds of thousands of citizens are peacefully protesting in the streets of Israel for months, in sharp contrast to the bloodshed and civil wars in neighboring countries.⁵ And both side of the Israeli protests are in favor of putting checks-and-balances for the government and judiciary.

Curiously, your letter was shockingly devoid of any mention of the PA continuing its “pay-to-slay” policy, in which it pays the families of Arab terrorists who kill Jews. It failed to mention the many schools and public squares are named after Arab terrorists who kill Jews.⁶ It omitted mentioning Palestinian law which calls for capital punishment or a life of hard labor for any Arab who sells land to a Jew.⁷

Your refusing to acknowledge the radical jihadi violence currently prevalent in Palestinian society – as well as the Islamic Republic of Iran march towards nuclear weapons – while simultaneously calling for the U.S. to consider pulling back military support for the only Jewish State, is alarming.

Rep. Bowman, anti-Semitism is brewing in your district, in your state and your country. At the same time, more Israeli Jews have already been killed by Palestinian terrorism since President Biden took office than in the full four years of the prior American administration.

Amidst such backdrop, you’ve decided that America should open an investigation of the Jewish State and show its enemies that the sole liberal democracy⁸ in the Middle East is losing its main supporter.

Not satisfied with penning such letter with Senator Bernie Sanders, you are seemingly agitating to get other members of congress to join your assault.

Congressman, you defeated Rep. Eliot Engel, one of the authors of the Taylor Force Act which restricted funds to the Palestinian Authority as long as it continued its “martyr payments.” Are you now using your power to strip Israel of funding for its defensive operations? Did congress not only lose a defender of human rights in the Middle East, but did it gain a member which tramples on them?

There are indeed “gross violations of human rights” happening now. And you are aiding and abetting the perpetrators.