Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman tells Haaretz why he believes the time has come for a new U.S. approach to Israel and the Palestinians, his own orientation on the matter and the role Israel plays in electoral politics
Haaretz | Ben Samuels | Apr 16, 2023
WASHINGTON – Since assuming office in January 2021, Rep. Jamaal Bowman has been among the most vocal progressive Democrats in Congress.
While he has frequently spoken out on matters related to Israel-Palestine, the New York congressman’s prioritization of the conflict reached new levels last week after he spearheaded a bicameral letter urging the Biden administration to fundamentally alter its approach to the matter.
“The U.S. has a major role in doing something about this in the same way we’ve had a major role for many, many years in funding Israel’s right to defend itself and exist as a country,” Bowman tells Haaretz. “The president needs to step in. No more silence on this issue. No more two-state solution just as a talking point.
“There really needs to be policy changes, pressure and relationship-building to ensure that we get to a place where Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace and justice for all people,” he adds.
Bowman says he has wanted to act since returning from a “very informative” J Street-organized congressional delegation in November 2021, where he says he was able to “see and experience the occupation in a very close and personal” way.
“I got a chance to meet with both Israeli and Palestinian activists who’ve been fighting to end the occupation, end settlement expansion and create a two-state solution on the ground for many, many years. I got to meet with Israeli and Palestinian scholars, I got to speak to former IDF soldiers who told me stories about things they would do in Palestinian homes,” he says.
“I myself was stopped at multiple checkpoints, multiple times, by soldiers with assault rifles who looked to be no older than 20 years old. That experience was transformative for me,” Bowman notes. “I returned feeling very strongly that the president needed to step in to really broker a potential peace, justice and two-state solution initiative that is real, has teeth and can be accomplished.”
Bowman believes his letter, signed by 13 of his Democratic colleagues, is a representation of that. “It’s the truth as I have learned it – not just based on my visit but based on things I’ve read, and people I’ve spoken to here who have been working on this issue for many, many years.”
The Bowman letter, officially co-led by Sen. Bernie Sanders, explicitly calls upon the Biden administration to ensure U.S. taxpayer funds are not supporting Israeli settlement projects, and to determine whether military aid is in violation of U.S. law.
The letter doesn’t explicitly state what conditioned aid would resemble, but concludes with urging Biden to “ensure that all future foreign assistance to Israel, including weapons and equipment, is not used in support of gross violations of human rights, including by strengthening end-use monitoring and financial tracking.” It also requested the administration respond with an according detailed plan.
Bowman, it should be noted, supported the broad idea of U.S. aid to Israel and did not join several of his progressive colleagues in voting against $1 billion in emergency supplemental funding for the Iron Dome missile defense system in September 2021.
As the 47-year-old Democrat sees it, the first priority is to establish “a thorough, transparent understanding of what’s happening on the ground and how our funds are being used by the Israeli government and how they have been used for many, many years.
“We provide the support and have been providing support, and I support us providing support to Israel because, as I’ve stated many times, yes, Israel has the right to exist and defend itself. But that is not in spite of Palestinians. The Palestinians have a right to a state, to self-determination and to not have their land expanded upon and settled upon, which has been happening for several decades,” he says.
“First, let’s be very transparent with the information. And then let’s act accordingly. And even the punishment, if you will, if it gets to a point of a punitive measure of withholding funds – that still doesn’t solve the ultimate problem,” Bowman continues.
“There needs to be a comprehensive, holistic approach to this problem, because I strongly believe Israelis are not going to be able to live in peace and prosperity continuously, as long as the Palestinians are an occupied people without a state of their own.”
Multiple conversations
The letter’s purpose, in Bowman’s view, is to ensure “we’re having a full, comprehensive conversation so that we can have a full, comprehensive understanding of what’s happening, so that we can get to a full and sustainable peace and justice solution. Not just peace and prosperity and self-determination for Israelis, but peace and justice and prosperity and self-determination [for] Palestinians as well.”
His missive follows efforts by more than 90 Democratic lawmakers last month urging Biden to pressure the Netanyahu government from further damaging Israel’s standing as a democracy. Sixteen Jewish House Democrats, meanwhile, expressed “profound concern” that Israel’s judicial overhaul could “undermine Israeli democracy and the civil rights and religious freedoms it protects.”
In Bowman’s view, these are not competing but complementary efforts.
“For me, it’s not just saying it because it’s a talking point. It’s about saying it and doing something about it. This occupation has been several decades, whereas it was supposed to be temporary. Israel has been under intense scrutiny from the United Nations and other human rights organizations, and we as the U.S. are continuing to have one conversation without the other. I have felt [this] for the last several years. This letter was just a chance to make sure we’re having the entire conversation,” he explains.
“They have to work in concert together,” he continues. “We have to have multiple conversations all at once. It is not a binary approach. What I have been concerned about since running for office initially, beginning these conversations because of who I was running against, is the idea of a two-state solution just being a talking point and being a nice thing to say, to make sure you are acceptable and comfortable to those who support an Israeli state,” he says.
The politician Bowman was running against was then-Rep. Eliot Engel – the 16-term incumbent who was perhaps the Democrat most closely associated with the pro-Israel establishment. Bowman defeated him in a primary battle despite pro-Israel PACs like Democratic Majority for Israel spending $1.5 million in hopes of defeating the progressive upstart.
“I didn’t run for office to address this issue as one of my top priorities,” says Bowman, who grew up in New York City public housing before becoming an educator and founding principal of a Bronx middle school.
“My district has a ton of other issues related to housing, to climate, to education, senior issues – you name it. Because of who I was running against and his background on this issue, and because of the large Jewish population and population that really cares about Israel in my district, this has become an issue that I had to be well versed in, and also periodically comment and lead on,” he says.
“I’ve tried to approach it with an objective lens and from the perspective of empathy and compassion and peace, which is what I want for all people regardless of background,” Bowman adds.
In Bowman’s view, there is a direct correlation between the instability currently plaguing Israel and the pro-Israel establishment’s approach to taking on candidates and lawmakers like himself.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we’re seeing hundreds of thousands of people in the streets protesting what the Israeli government is doing right now. It’s not a coincidence that the Israeli government has been very unstable over the last several years. AIPAC’s weaponization of antisemitism and conflating it with criticism of Israel has been harmful to Israel,” he says, referring to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
“I really think AIPAC needs to take a different, more balanced, honest and measured approach where they are also talking about valuing Palestinian life in the same way that we value Israeli life. The creation of a Jewish democratic state should not happen at the expense of a Palestinian state that still doesn’t exist, and at the expense of Palestinians who are living as second-class citizens in Israel,” Bowman states.
For him, “the rhetoric and the one-sidedness have been harmful. We have to move away from that so we can get to a place where there’s peace and justice and prosperity for all people.”
‘Empathy and compassion’
Despite Bowman’s participation on congressional letters and legislative efforts aimed at bettering Palestinian lives since assuming office, he nevertheless faced significant backlash from leading progressive organizations – primarily the Democratic Socialists of America – for meeting with senior Israeli officials during his 2021 J Street trip.
While he was not expelled from the movement, despite a pronounced effort, the Democratic Socialists and leading Palestinian activists noted that Bowman shared a vision and values concerning Palestinian rights and aspirations, and that he was committed to advancing Palestinian rights on a congressional level.
The congressman would eventually revoke his support for Israel’s normalization pacts with Arab states, aka the Abraham Accords, removing his co-sponsorship of legislation aimed at strengthening and expanding them, and committing to voting no should it come to the House floor for a vote. Engel and the pro-Israel establishment unsuccessfully backed Bowman’s challenger in the 2022 primary, Westchester County legislator Vedat Gashi, based on this decision.
“When everybody’s criticizing you, you must be doing something right. There was one point where DSA was criticizing me so much that Democratic Majority for Israel came to my defense – I thought that was pretty hilarious,” Bowman says.
“Because I’m not Israeli nor Palestinian, nor Jewish nor Muslim, I can take an objective sort of approach and view to what’s happening there. But because I’m a Black man in America, I can empathize with people who have been marginalized, oppressed and systematically killed because of who they are. I try to approach my relationships with the Jewish community, the Israeli community, the Palestinian community, the Muslim community, from the perspective of empathy and compassion and understanding. That’s how I’ve always tried to approach this,” he says.
“I’ve always been very comfortable in my own skin around these issues, because I don’t hate any people for any reason. What I hate is oppression; what I hate is marginalization; what I hate is unnecessary killing of people. We need to get to a point where we’re not senselessly killing each other, and we need to live in peace and justice,” he adds.
Like many of his letter’s signatories, Bowman is part of a cohort of lawmakers reflecting the Democratic Party’s foundational shift: younger people of color, many of them women. While Bowman is reticent to speak for his colleagues, he suggests that their outspokenness is not necessarily about thinking about Israel differently but ensuring empathy toward the Palestinians.
“There has to be a leveling here. Palestinian lives are as important as Israeli lives. If we continue to have a conversation where Israeli lives seem to be talked about and protected more than Palestinian life, then we’re just going to continue to cause the harm that we’re seeing now,” he says.
Moving forward, Bowman says he is “going to continue to be myself and be honest about what I see and what I’m learning, and continue to engage in dialogue with other people on the issue, and choose to engage in honest balanced dialogue. That’s it. I’m not thinking any further beyond that.
“Everything I’ve said about Israel-Palestine aligns directly to my overall foreign policy perspective: peace, justice and prosperity for all people; self-determination for all people; ending forever wars and conflict; working together to solve issues of climate change and discrimination — whether it’s because someone’s a woman or Muslim or Jewish or Black,” he continues.
“This aligns to my philosophy of collective humanity,” he sums up, “so I’m just going to continue to be myself and have those conversations and hopefully continue to move an agenda of peace and love for all people forward.”