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Brooklyn, NY — Open Letter to Constituents:
For three millennia the land of Israel has been at the heart of the Jewish people; the Homeland from where the ancient traditions, culture and values emanated.
The state of Israel has served as a refuge for Jews the world over, a country rebuilt following the horrors of the Holocaust on the principles of freedom and democracy.
The United States and the State of Israel share a special relationship and, as a Member of Congress, I am committed to working to strengthen this relationship.
Brooklyn’s 11th Congressional District, which I have the honor to represent …
Gentle Persuasion: A delegation of Orthodox constituents and other Jewish leaders met with Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-Brooklyn) and convinced her to renounce her support for a congressional letter calling on President Obama to press Israel to ease its blockade of civilian goods and raw materials moving in and out of Gaza. [Photo: COLlive.com]
Washington (Forward) — In the strongest sign so far of pushback against dovish Jewish groups, a New York congresswoman representing an ultra-Orthodox constituency retracted her support from congressional initiatives meant to ease the pressure on Palestinians in Gaza.
Yvette Clarke, of New York’s 11th District, which covers large parts of Brooklyn, met February 1 with a group of local Jewish leaders, many ultra-Orthodox, to discuss their concerns about her decision to sign on to two congressional letters dealing with the plight of Palestinians in Gaza. One letter called for lifting travel restrictions on Palestinian students, and the other for easing the Israeli blockade on Gaza.
The Jewish leaders’ intervention produced an open letter to Clarke’s Jewish constituents in which she expressed her regret for supporting the congressional letters. “Unfortunately, these letters are uneven in their application of pressure and do not sufficiently present a balanced approach/path to peace,” Clarke wrote, adding that the letters have “a provocative and reactionary impact.”
A spokesman for Agudath Israel of America said that Jewish participants in the meeting with Clarke responded to her new letter with “cautious optimism” and expressed their hope that her future stance on the Middle East “will reflect the support for Israel she is voicing now.”
"Israel's response to the pain of others is legendary."
Clarke’s retraction of her support for the Gaza letters echoes similar pressure put on lawmakers in the run-up to J Street’s first national conference, in October 2009. Then, too, some members of Congress from strongly Jewish districts came under constituent pressure to withdraw from a list of sponsors for the event.
UNRWA: An Assessment of Needs Six Months After the War (pdf)
(Mondoweiss) — Israel lobbyists are calling the 54 brave congresspeople who signed the letter to Obama against the Gaza blockade “the gang of 54,” and trying to light a fire under em. One of them has cold feet. From Arutz Sheva wire:
A long-standing representative of the Brooklyn community of Crown Heights, Clarke recently joined a photo-op snapped with Brooklyn Jewish community leaders who had gathered donations for the earthquake-stricken people of Haiti.
“We all see the swift and expert work of Israeli doctors and rescue teams on the ground almost immediately following the 7.0 earthquake,” she told reporters covering the event at the time. “The Jewish response to the pain of others is legendary — and today’s gathering is a continuation of the special heart the Jewish community always shows in times of crisis.”
Is this a story in the US? No one seems to be covering this climbdown, if that’s what it is. And here in the New Jersey Jewish News, pressure on three congresspeople from Jersey who took a stand.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
