New Jersey Blue Dog Josh Gottheimer wasn't in Congress when the Israeli Air Force and Navy bombed and torpedoed the USS Liberty 54 years ago this week, killing 34 American crew members and injuring 171 others. In fact Gottheimer wasn't born yet. Had he been, he would have written a letter to the Israeli government apologizing for an American ship-- in international waters-- getting in the way of Israeli munitions. Israel is the only country in the world whose interest are allowed to be championed by American politicians even over the interests of the U.S. Gottheimer is only one-- albeit one of the worst.
This week Gottheimer has circulated a letter he wrote to Biden's war minister Lloyd Austin expressing "our strong support for the Biden Administration’s ironclad commitment to Israel’s safety and security, including replenishing Israel’s stock of interceptors for the Iron Dome missile defense system and other important matters... If Israel requests additional assistance, as contemplated in the MOU, please work closely with Congress to expeditiously fulfill this request. To help facilitate this process, we look forward to receiving a reply from you outlining your assessment of the need for Iron Dome replenishment and your engagement with our ally Israel on this matter. Please know that Congress stands with the Administration in its commitment to ensuring Israel’s security and capability to defend itself from any attack.”
So far 47 members of Congress-- overwhelmingly conservatives of course-- have signed on to a letter, hoping it will help Israel's criminal Trumpist prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu stay in power. One of the signatories though was fake progressive and Speaker-in-waiting Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), likely to be the worst Democratic House leader in any of our lifetimes.
Actual progressives in Congress have been working hard to try to finally ween America off dysfunctional iron-clad support for Israel for a more even-handed approach to the tragic and festering situation in Palestine/Israel. Aside from AIPAC pawns Gottheimer and Jeffries, other Democrats who signed on to the letter-- many of them recipients of AIPAC-related pay-offs-- are:
Stephanie Murphy (Blue Dog-FL)
Debbie Wasserman Schultz (New Dem-FL)
Charlie Crist (Blue Dog-FL)
Abigail Spanberger (Blue Dog-VA)
Ted Deutch (FL)
Luis Correa (Blue Dog-CA)
Jared Golden (Blue Dog-ME)
Tom Malinowski (New Dem-NJ)
Tom O'Halleran (Blue Dog-AZ)
Brad Schneider (Blue Dog-IL)
Vicente Gonzalez (Blue Dog-TX)
Darren Soto (New Dem-FL)
Susie Lee (New Dem-NV)
Sharice Davids (New Dem-KS)
Elaine Luria (New Dem-VA)
Tom Suozzi (New Dem-NY)
Chrissy Houlahan (New Dem-PA)
Andy Kim (NJ)
Chris Pappas (New Dem-NH)
Dean Phillips (New Dem-MN)
Elissa Slotkin (New Dem-MI)
Kathy Manning (New Dem-NC)
Grace Meng (NY)
Jake Auchincloss (MA)
Haley Stevens (New Dem-MI)
Brendan Boyle (New Dem-PA)
Lizzie Fletcher (New Dem-TX)
Conor Lamb (PA)
Susan Wild (New Dem-PA)
Colin Allred (New Dem-TX)
Lucy McBath (New Dem-GA)
Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)