Rep. Scholten once again demonstrates her allegiance to Israeli propaganda, with the support of so-called Progressive Democrats

According to a November 7th Press Release, “Rep. Hillary Scholten (MI-03) led dozens of her colleagues in issuing the below statement condemning the use of the anti-Semitic phrase, “from the river to the sea,” affirming Israel’s right to defend itself, and calling for a humanitarian pause to help save innocent life in Gaza.”

What follows is a deconstruction of the statement by Rep. Hillary Scholten. 

Here some additional sources to the points we made in my deconstruction of Rep. Scholten’s Press Release statement.

1. “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is a call for Israel to extend citizenship and legal and political equality to every single human being residing within its current borders. This is exactly the point that Rep. Tlaib was making in her statement, which got her censured. Here are two articles that do a good job of explaining how the phrase has been used and abused to silence criticism of Israel. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/2/from-the-river-to-the-sea-what-does-the-palestinian-slogan-really-mean?fbclid=IwAR0C2rq4Fi9y5DvxI8_tILKxwoLHMZhlwGd3N9D-5lgJch8fmf5LO7xp5f8 https://jacobin.com/2023/11/from-the-river-to-the-sea-palestine-equality-one-state-rashida-tlaib-censure

3.  For a more detailed analysis of the history between the Israelis and Palestinians, see  Decolonizing Israel, Liberating Palestine: Zionism, Settler Colonialism, and the Case for One Democratic State, by Jeff Halper – especially Part II on the Three Cycles of Zionist Colonial development.

6. For a detailed look at International Law and War Crimes, see https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/war-crimes.shtml 

7. For a list of US imperialist actions since 1890, see Zoltan Grossman’s resource, which not only provides a chronological list of US interventions since 1890, but identifies when the US engaged in brutalizing civilian populations. https://sites.evergreen.edu/zoltan/wp-content/uploads/sites/358/2019/11/InterventionsList2019.pdf 

11. See my article from October 16 on how much money pro-Israel PACs have given candidates and spent on lobbying the US Congress. When it comes to President Joe Biden, who has been a member of Congress since before 1990, the Pro-Israel PACs have contributed $4,228,614 to Biden’s coffers, making him the number 1 recipient of Pro-Israeli PACs since Open Secrets started tracking campaign contributions in 1990.

12. For a detailed analysis of how the US is NOT interested in a peaceful resolution between the Israelis and the Palestinians, see the book, Dishonest Broker: The Role of the United States in Palestine and Israel, by Nasser Aruri.