Rep. Scholten endorses Israeli War Crimes in Gaza

In July, I wrote about 3rd Congressional Representative Hillary Scholten who voted for a US resolution at that time, which claimed that Israel was not a racist or an Apartheid State.

In that same article, I wrote that Rep. Scholten had planned to visit Israel with other US politicians, so I suggested that she do the following, when I stated: 

Also, if Rep. Scholten is planning on visiting Israel, they should meet with the Israeli Human Rights group, B’Tselem, along with spending time at Israeli check points, Israeli prisons and the Israeli Settlements, which the United Nations have deemed as illegal. In fact, the only two countries that consistently vote against claiming that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, are the US and Israel. The rest of the world supports the claims of the Palestinians. 

At the end of that article, I noted that even though Rep. Scholten had only been in Congress for the past 10 months, she had already been the recipient of $95,728.00 from Pro-Israel PACs, based on data collected by OpenSectrets.org.

Therefore, it was no surprise that after the Hamas attack on Israel some 10 days ago, Rep. Scholten has been a zealous supporter of Israel. In her weekly newsletter of October 7, here is what Rep. Scholten wrote: 

As I write this, Israel has declared that it is going to war following an attack by Hamas. This is no time for the U.S. House to be in disarray. I stand ready–as I have been–to work with my Republican colleagues on a way forward. 

In her October 14 newsletter, Rep. Scbolten made it clear how she ready to work with the Republicans to do the following: 

I co-sponsored a bipartisan bill to allocate an additional $2 billion in funding for the Iron Dome defense system to help protect the region. 

-I signed a resolution reaffirming the United States’ strong allegiance with and support for Israel. 

-Both in DC and through the team back home, we attended vigils to mourn the victims and acknowledge that their loss is what propels us to seek a resolution to lasting peace in the region.

To be clear, what Rep. Scholten considers to be a move towards “lasting peace in the region,” is to provide Israel with $2 Billion for the Israeli Iron Dome, which is on top of the already $3 Billion they have received from US taxpayers for 2023 already. In addition, signing a resolution re-affirming the US support for Israel really means that Rep. Scholten affirms:

• The 50 year Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, which has been determined to be illegal by the international community.
• The detainment and torture of Palestinians who are in Israeli jails, 
• The expansion of Israeli Settlements, which have been deemed illegal by the United Nations, 
• The decades long Israeli economic blockade of Gaza, which has created tremendous hardship and suffering amongst the Palestinians,
• The existence of the Apartheid Wall in Israel,
• And now, the retaliation by the Israeli military, which is bombing Gaza. On Thursday, the Israeli Air Force announced that over the last five days it had dropped 6,000 bombs, hitting more than 3,600 targets in Gaza. That’s more than the United States dropped during any month of the five-year-long US air campaign against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. 
• Plus, the Israeli government wants the the roughly 2 million Palestinians who live in Gaza to leave, which is essentially forced displacement and would legally be a form of genocide, as was recently stated by Raz Segal, an Israeli expert in modern genocide, who wrote a piece entitled, A Textbook case of Genocide.

If one looks at Rep. Scholten’s Facebook page, since October 7 she has made 16 different posts about either the Hamas attacks on Israel or how US citizens can get out of Israel, but not one word condemning the 50 year illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, the apartheid system in Israel and nothing on Israel’s bombing of Gaza and their call to forcibly remove nearly 2 million Palestinians from Gaza!

It is unacceptable that Rep. Scholten unconditionally supports Israel. People should be challenging her on her unconditional support for war crimes and the ongoing brutalization of the Palestinian people. At a minimum people should call her at (616) 451-8383 or send her message via Facebook, but other actions are warranted.