Almost three dozen members of Congress have now banded together to call for a bilateral cease fire between Israel and Hamas. That is already drawing condemnation. And not just condemnation, but bucks or at least promises of bucks to come. Because AIPAC, according to a new report, has a plan to spend in just [00:00:18] the Democratic primary over $100 million to take out some of those who have signed this call for the cease fire. Members of the squad and others, we'll get to that. But first, I want to talk about the actual cause for the cease fire, because on Wednesday, you had 24 members of the House sending a letter to both President Biden [00:00:37] as well as the secretary of state. And we want to give you just a little bit of what is in that call. They say we write to you to express deep concern about the intensifying war in Gaza, particularly grave violations against children, and are fear that without an immediate cessation of hostilities and the establishment of a robust bilateral cease fire, this war will lead to a further loss of civilian life [00:00:56] and risked dragging the United States into dangerous and unwise conflict with armed groups across the Middle East. It seems like a reasonable concern considering the last two decades of American foreign policy. They go on to say we reaffirm our unequivocal condemnation of the Hamas attacks on Israel that took place on October 7th. [00:01:13] We also share dire concerns with the ongoing Israeli response, in which the Israeli Defense Forces have killed over 11,078 Palestinians, nearly half of whom have been children. Now, there are a lot of people on that list, some of them standouts that you're not going to be surprised to find out are signatories, including [00:01:30] Representatives Tlaib and Ocasio-Cortez. But on top of that, you also have Representative Becca Balint, who became the first Jewish member of Congress to call for a cease fire as well. And that is notable particularly because some of the previous comment from the representative went in a slightly different direction [00:01:48] so early on had said that Israel's right to defend itself against the unprecedented surprise attack against them is basically absolute, that that's what we should be focusing on at that point. But now we have in this op ed, I want to give you sort of the evolution says I'm one generation removed from the horrific trauma of the Holocaust, which [00:02:06] impacted my family and reshaped the world. Like me, there are thousands of American Jews that share a deep emotional connection to Israel because of what it meant for the survival of the Jewish people in the face of extermination. This same history also drives so many of us to fight for the protection of Palestinian lives. [00:02:23] I do not claim to know how to solve every aspect of this decades long conflict, but what I do know is that killing civilians and killing children is an abomination and categorically unacceptable. No matter who the civilians are and no matter who the children are. And let me just add, same for for all of that from the initial attack, [00:02:42] which was utterly horrendous. I love the historic context that Representative Ballot adds and then talks about why there seems like there should be a natural connection between your desire to protect civilians on both sides of this conflict. And so it is good to see that. [00:02:57] So we have overall 34 members of Congress calling for a cease fire. Just one senator, though, that is Senator Dick Durbin. None others have joined them, including Bernie Sanders, who sort of doubled down on not using that terminology, saying, I am not quite sure how you would negotiate a cease fire with a terrorist organization that is dedicated to [00:03:15] perpetual war and as a practical matter, long term or even medium term. Yeah, that might well be difficult, but it would be really nice to have it for as long as is possible, even if that's a short time. Dozens, hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives could be on the line, [00:03:31] even with a brief cease fire. And that certainly seems like something worth engaging in a little bit of experimental diplomacy over. That said, I have thrown a lot out there. Sharon, I want to start with you. What are your thoughts about some of these recent developments? I think that when you lead with. Well, I'll say it, bullying money force. [00:03:50] It's never going to end. And we're in a climate worldwide of polarization. And so when a representative makes a measured not even careful, just a decent measured statement, I think it deserves more attention than that. [00:04:08] Respectfully, Senator Sanders, he's talking about the terrorist organization. Others are bringing up the Palestinian people. And I think that when you have children, you know, babies dying and you have people [00:04:23] who have lost everything, including lives, so many of them on both sides of this. I'm not making any kind of moral equivalency about how we got here with this incident in October, but it's just there's a time that you have to give people a seat at the table and threatening and bullying and using gobs of money. [00:04:44] More money, I guess, than maybe, maybe, perhaps will ever be used in this way. What are you really going to accomplish? I am so disappointed in Bernie Sanders, and I am. [00:05:00] So impressed by Representative Rebecca. That's her name. The Jewish representative who's calling for a cease fire. Because it is. [00:05:15] I mean, this whole issue, I feel like logic and reason has left the building with this entire issue. Like people who I normally consider sane, reasonable, thoughtful, [00:05:32] intelligent people are just they're just like, no, no, no, no, no. And it's like, no, you know what? Two things can be true. A we can call for a cease fire to stop killing children and babies. [00:05:50] And we can also be pro-Israel and and anti Hamas. Like, why are we conflating these two things? Why is calling for a cease fire automatically make me anti-Semitic or anti-Israel or pro Hamas? [00:06:06] Like two things can be true, people. And I feel like, you know, people who would normally be able to see that and speak to that in a reasonable way. It's just like, I don't know what you know. I mean, I'm sure I know, you know, there's all this history, [00:06:25] you know, with the Holocaust and stuff, but also the, you know, let's face it, there's money behind a lot of this. Who's giving the money where? And I just I just can't believe more people are not speaking out. [00:06:40] Like. Like I personally have lost a few thousand followers on my Instagram account because I've said really? Like because I posted a video of a clearly a Palestinian child who had been injured [00:06:56] and attacked and who was the same age as my nephew, and it broke my heart. And I literally just reposted the video of this suffering toddler, and I and I, I hashtag cease fire now. And I lost like 3000 Instagram followers [00:07:11] because people just can't like logic and reason has left the building in this whole issue, I feel, and I and I can't believe it, I can't believe it. It really does feel like that. And by the way, I don't know Representative Becca Balint, but, you know, being the first Jewish member of Congress, I imagine this [00:07:29] is an incredibly difficult thing to do. I can't imagine what messages she's getting, you know, not necessarily just from randos, but from from colleagues, from perhaps family members. Like there's, as you point out, there is just so much vitriol and there is [00:07:45] so little willingness to extend, like, like a quantum of grace in any of this. I was reading a Reddit discussion of the DNC protest, and there were so many people willing to just say, you know, they're doing that. [00:08:00] They're calling for the cease fire because they hate Jewish people and they want them all dead. And I thought, I don't I don't think that's probably it. Many of them are Jewish that were in the protest. So that's probably not what it is. I don't feel like that's driving like there's just there's so little willingness [00:08:15] to extend any grace. And I understand that that is not that is not true only of one side, I am sure, when I, you know, talk about this issue, I'm sure I could do better. And I will try to, but but we are not in a we're not in the realm of the hypothetical right now. [00:08:32] We're not in the immediate aftermath of the horrendous attack of October 7th with an idea of what the strategy is going to be talking about hypotheticals of, no, there should be a cease fire, because what if people die? We're not there. Over 11,000 people have already died. [00:08:50] And if that doesn't get through to you, if that doesn't cause you to take pause, and even if somehow it doesn't get you to to like to, you know, favor a cease fire, if that doesn't cause you to at least want to reassess the strategy, then I would put forward that perhaps nothing will, but it's. [00:09:08] But it's truly horrendous to me. It is good to see that we have at least, you know, 8% of the house. No, not even less than that. Being willing to to call for one senator. You can't get two senators to rub together on this. [00:09:23] It is. It's amazing. But we might soon have even less dissension because, as I said, there is now this report, although AIPAC disputes it, that they are going to put more than $100 million into the Democratic primary to take out some of the most vocal critics [00:09:39] of Israeli policy and military strategy so close watchers now expect, according to Alexander Salmon of Slate, expect them to put 100 million forward, largely trained on eliminating incumbent squad members from their seats. [00:09:54] So look, the members of the squad have been challenged in basically every election. - They to some. - Extent challenge entrenched power. So that's not surprising. But now there's going to be a lot more money that goes towards it. Bush, Bowman, Lee and Omar have drawn primary opponents already. [00:10:11] You know, many of them are safe blue seats. We will see how they can ward off these sorts of challenges. But $100 million is a lot of money, and it's almost certain that they will be able to raise money to counter that. I don't know if they'll be able to counter $100 million. [00:10:27] And notably, while the Democratic caucus generally says that they support their incumbents, that's why they don't support primary challengers to people like Representative Henry Cuellar or something. It doesn't seem like they're super concerned about this massive war chest [00:10:44] being rumored to target some of the most outspoken and in some cases, popular members. So it's sort of weird where they like lock arms to protect the incumbents and where they're like, well, you know, let's see how this goes. But I want to read, to be fair, spokesman from APC saying [00:11:02] we are reviewing a number of races involving detractors of Israel, but we have made no decisions at this time. I'm not going to like beat a dead horse, but I will give a brief version of what I always say, which is challenging government policy, particularly of a party or a governing coalition that is as unpopular as it is in Israel. [00:11:20] Criticizing a military strategy is not criticizing a country or a nation, or a people or a religion. That's not how it happens. That's how propaganda works. And I hate that the way that people throw those terms around. But but AOC responded to this, saying criticism of the Israeli government [00:11:37] and she's specific, see, is virtually nonexistent in US politics. But apparently that's not enough. Got to spend 100 million to unseat the few who believe in Palestinian human rights and a cease fire that most Americans already support. That's true. The polls bear it out. The acceptable level of dissent is zero. And look, we cannot be too surprised. [00:11:54] This is what money and politics is for. Massive sums of money from a variety of different groups that are raised to counter, like the popular will. It's not about engaging in persuasion and trying to rally people to your cause. It's flooding the zone in the election, largely with misinformation. [00:12:10] And so we're looking at another round of that. Helen, I apologize. I went on for a long time there. This whole thing frustrates me. - What are your thoughts? - This is the. Thing that this is why I'm so disappointed in Bernie Sanders is because, as many of you know, I was an active campaigner for Bernie in both 2016 [00:12:29] and 2020 for him to get the presidency. And I often encountered people who said Jewish people who would say, oh, he's anti-Semitic, and I'd be like, he's Jewish. And they'd be like, no, he's anti-Semitic, because. [00:12:45] And I'd be like, why? And he's like, oh, because he's into because he likes Palestinians. And I'd be like, oh, do you mean the one time he said, Palestinians are people too? And that's, you know, and that's kind of where we are for some reason now, [00:13:01] like saying Palestinians are people, too. Palestinian babies don't have nothing to do with Hamas and had nothing to do with the attack on Israel in October, on October 7th, which was horrendous and Hamas is horrendous. [00:13:19] But why are we bombing babies that are happen to be in geographic closeness to Hamas? You know what I mean? Like, it's just it's so like people, please, like I keep going back to like two things can be true and we can accept that [00:13:39] we shouldn't be bombing babies anywhere. You know, like when you say never again, you can't say never again. For one group, it's got to be never again across the board, right? Never again. Genocide period. I think we should all be on board with. [00:13:56] And that's not what's happening. That's not what's happening right now. It's like just because I say, I don't think Palestinian babies deserve to die doesn't make me anti-Semitic or anti-Israel. - Like two things can be true, people. - I couldn't agree more. [00:14:11] And this litmus test for who's anti-Semitic ceasefire, I guess, is the question. And if you say you want ceasefire, then there it is. There's the litmus test for it. When 66% of Americans say, we don't, we don't want to see any more of this. [00:14:27] We want something to be figured out. To me, it means that we we don't have the right leaders. We kind of knew that before, but it's like putting a punctuation mark at the end of this thing. I think laser focus should be on the Democratic Party and the leadership when they are. [00:14:42] Crickets won't stand up for these incumbents. It seems that both sides I was going to say, you know, the Republicans, they don't agree with you. You got to wipe you out. You're not allowed to stay here. But look at the Democratic Party and what they're not saying and how they're not helping here because I believe they don't want dissent. [00:14:59] Either. They are tired of those eight people in their ear. They wish they would just capitulate, and since they won't, well, it might not be such a bad thing to let the other side do our dirty work. Yeah, yeah, well, risky game, considering what the polls show, [00:15:14] particularly amongst younger voters, particularly with Joe Biden already so unpopular, particularly with the really difficult Democratic Senate map in 2024. Feels like you might want to show the people that you're hearing them, but we'll see. We've got about three dozen. Perhaps that will grow over time. [00:15:32] The only question is how many civilians need to die before that happens? If you enjoyed this video, that's because of our members. They make us independent. They make us strong, and they make us honest. Become a member today by hitting the join button below.