Talk to Us, Senator Booker. Talk to Us Now!
Senator Cory Booker needs to find a podium with a microphone hardwired to the Jewish community. And we recommend that he does this in a hurry.
Because if he does not, he’ll likely be seen as an elected official who played New Jersey’s Jewish voters, including his active NORPAC supporters from this very community, for record levels of campaign cash and possibly hollow promises of a secure Israel.
In a short three years, Booker, who has been mentioned as a possible Democratic presidential candidate, has tarnished his once-heralded Jewish-community connection by supporting the Obama administration’s ill-conceived Iran nuke deal, voting against the very emotional and necessary Taylor Force Act in committee, and condemning the move of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Oh, and did we mention he did not sign on as a co-sponsor of the Israel Anti-Boycott Act?
With these acts alone, Booker needed to explain himself.
Most recently, that need for an explanation gained urgency.
Booker was photographed last week at the Netroots Nation conference in New Orleans with pro-BDS activists as he held a sign with the improbable words “From Palestine to Mexico, all the walls have got to go.”
This is the same man who received record-setting NORPAC funding and up until recent years has been the darling of the Jewish community’s Democratic hopes on Capitol Hill.
But that support could be and should be in jeopardy from the Jewish community. Booker denied knowing that the sign he held was anti-Israel, backed by people connected to an anti-Semitic agenda. But that’s not good enough.
A United States senator, the careful, knowledgeable man we know him to be, needs to know these connections. His statement of ignorance through a spokesman is unacceptable now. We would like to give him the benefit of the doubt to correct the course he has been taking in recent years, but this is not so easy to believe with his record in front of us.
We aren’t sure anymore what this man really stands for when it comes to Israel in the U.S. Senate. And we worry that the very definite trending socialist and left wing in the Democratic Party is something Booker is moving toward.
Senator Booker, we implore you to talk to this very community who backed you when you ran for mayor of Newark and then for senator.
Senator, your actions are validating the very movements that make conditions on U.S. campuses more hostile, stressful and unwelcoming for Jewish students.
Senator, give us a reason to want to continue our support for you.
Because at this point you are giving us every reason not to.
