Members of “the Squad” — the far-left group of House Democrats, many of whom have ties to the Democratic Socialists of America — have drawn condemnation from colleagues after their statements on the ongoing Hamas attack on Israel.
While most American lawmakers in both parties have offered firm support to the Jewish state as it experiences arguably its worst spate of violence in the country’s history, not all members of Congress are on the same page. Representative Cori Bush (D., Mo.) said in a statement on X that the U.S. must end its support for the “Israeli military occupation and apartheid.” Representative Jamaal Bowman (D., N.Y.) called on Israel to end its “blockade of Gaza.” Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) and Ayanna Pressley (D., Mass.) both called for “an immediate ceasefire and de-escalation,” arguing that Israel should not take steps to eliminate the Hamas threat.
Representative Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) initially criticized the Hamas-wrought carnage while still urging “deescalation and ceasefire” and framing the current attack as part of a “back and forth cycle.” She then wrote, in reference to Gaza, that the U.S. is in need of “a moral awakening to care about the human suffering we are seeing.”
Representative Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) said in an Instagram post that the correct way for Israel to respond to the terror it faces is “lifting the blockade, ending the occupation, and dismantling the apartheid system that creates the suffocating, dehumanizing conditions that can lead to resistance.” Blaming Israel for the suffering it is currently experiencing, she said that the U.S. must end its support for the Jewish state, writing that “as long as our country provides billions in unconditional funding to support the apartheid government, this heartbreaking cycle of violence will continue.”
Members of their own party have since offered strongly-worded condemnations of their far-left colleagues. Representative Josh Gottheimer (D., N.J.) said it “sickens” him “that while Israelis clean the blood of their family members shot in their homes, they believe Congress should strip U.S. funding to our democratic ally and allow innocent civilians to suffer.”
Representative Ritchie Torres (D., N.Y.) called the Squad members’ comments “reprehensible and repulsive,” saying in a statement that “Congress must act decisively to provide Israel with whatever it needs to defend itself in the face of unprecedented terrorism.”
“Shame on anyone who glorifies as ‘resistance’ the largest single-day mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust,” Torres said.