Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) likes to think that as a Black man from the Bronx and a card-carrying member of The Squad, he has the moral high ground. Self-assured that he knows everything about the struggle for people across the world, Bowman believes that he can tell everyone how to behave and that he’ll always be right.
However, at a November 13th pro-ceasefire event in Washington D.C., he made it evident that by Jew-splaining to a massive contingency of the faithful, he thinks he knows how they are supposed to behave.
“I’ve heard what was said here this evening before that, by me calling for a ceasefire with my colleagues and centering humanity, I am uplifting deeply what it actually means to be Jewish because I’m centering the way in which God wants us to live with each other. So, I feel grateful to be standing here. The Israeli government does not represent Judaism or Jewish values and the Jewish people. It does not, just like Hamas doesn’t represent the Palestinian people, and so, we have to hold these governments accountable for how they behave…We have to be honest about that.”
Talking as if he has been handed the Jewish playbook, Bowman has no frame of reference as to what it means to be Jewish, nor what the land of Israel means to the Jewish people. Even more insidiously, equating Hamas and Palestine to Jews and Israel is horrific. Hamas is a terrorist organization that is funded by Iran and seeks to fight the Jewish people for their rights to the Holy Lands. The Jews are people of the Jewish faith and make up the people of Israel.
There is a reason the Star of David is on their flag, and it’s not to look pretty. The Jewish people will defend their lands, and if the militants of Hamas want to hide in and under hospitals and other “safe” places, they do so, knowing full well the risks. A ceasefire at this point is just a recipe for destruction.