{"id":48800,"date":"2024-08-01T10:18:39","date_gmt":"2024-08-01T18:18:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=48800"},"modified":"2024-08-01T10:18:39","modified_gmt":"2024-08-01T18:18:39","slug":"the-smearing-of-cori-bush-for-being-truthful-about-the-gaza-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2024\/08\/01\/the-smearing-of-cori-bush-for-being-truthful-about-the-gaza-war\/","title":{"rendered":"The Smearing of Cori Bush for Being Truthful About the Gaza War"},"content":{"rendered":"

Soon after the Gaza war began 10 months ago, a prominent newspaper columnist denounced Congresswoman Cori Bush under a headline declaring that \u201canti-Israel comments make her unfit for reelection.\u201d The piece appeared in the newspaper with the second-largest readership in Missouri, the Kansas City Star<\/em>. Multimillion-dollar attacks on Bush followed.<\/p>\n

Bush\u2019s opponent, county prosecutor Wesley Bell, \u201cis now the number-one recipient of AIPAC cash this election cycle,\u201d according to Justice Democrats. \u201cAlmost two-thirds of all his donations came from the anti-Palestinian, far-right megadonor-funded lobby group.\u201d The Intercept<\/em> reports<\/a> that \u201cAIPAC\u2019s super PAC, United Democracy Project, has gone on to spend a total of $7 million so far to oust Bush\u201d in the Aug. 6 Democratic primary in her St. Louis area district.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cThe $2.1 million in ads spent for her campaign is up against $12.2 million spent to attack her or support Bell,\u201d The American Prospect<\/em> points out<\/a>. AIPAC \u201cis trying to pull voters away from her without ever saying the words \u2018Israel\u2019 or \u2018Palestine.\u2019 Instead, their advertising against Bush centers around her record on infrastructure legislation, in a manner that lacks context.\u201d<\/p>\n

It’s easy to see why AIPAC and allied forces are so eager to defeat Bush. She courageously introduced a ceasefire resolution<\/a> in the House nine days after the bloodshed began on Oct. 7, calling for \u201can immediate de-escalation and ceasefire in Israel and occupied Palestine.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Kansas City Star <\/em>article<\/a>, published shortly after Bush introduced the resolution, was written by former New York Times<\/em> reporter Melinda Henneberger, now a member of the Star<\/em>\u2019s editorial board. \u201cA military attack in response to the massacre of civilians by a group committed in writing to \u2018carnage, displacement and terror\u2019 for Jews is not my idea of \u2018ethnic cleansing,\u2019\u201d she wrote in early November. \u201cBut it is Missouri Rep. Cori Bush\u2019s, which is why she deserves to lose her congressional race next year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bush supposedly became unfit to keep her seat in Congress because, after three weeks of methodical killing in Gaza, she tweeted<\/a>: \u201cWe can\u2019t be silent about Israel\u2019s ethnic cleansing campaign. Babies, dead. Pregnant women, dead. Elderly, dead. Generations of families, dead. Millions of people in Gaza with nowhere to go being slaughtered. The U.S. must stop funding these atrocities against Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Henneberger\u2019s response was hit-and-run. She wrote a hit piece. And then she ran.<\/p>\n

Ever since late April, I\u2019ve been asking Henneberger just one question, over and over. Every few weeks, I have sent another email directly to her. I also wrote to her care of an editor at the newspaper. And I even mailed a certified letter, which the post office delivered to her office in June.<\/p>\n

No reply.<\/p>\n

Henneberger\u2019s column had flatly declared that Bush\u2019s tweet was a \u201cprojectile spewing of antisemitic comments and disinformation\u201d because it said that Israel was engaged in ethnic cleansing.<\/p>\n

So, my question, which Henneberger has been refusing to answer for more than three months, is a logical one: \u201cDo you contend that the Israeli government has not engaged in ethnic cleansing?\u201d<\/p>\n

If Henneberger were to answer no, the entire premise of her column smearing Bush would collapse.<\/p>\n

If Henneberger were to answer yes, her reply would be untenable.<\/p>\n

No wonder she has chosen not to answer at all.<\/p>\n

What Israel has been doing in Gaza clearly qualifies as \u201cethnic cleansing\u201d \u2013 which a UN Commission of Experts defined<\/a> as \u201ca purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

But denial about Israel\u2019s massive and ongoing crimes against Palestinian people is pervasive \u2013 and often used to attack principled progressives in election campaigns. And so, two months ago, in the St. Louis area, 35 rabbis supporting Bell against Bush issued a statement<\/a> that alleged the congresswoman \u201ccontinually fanned the flames with the most outrageous smears of Israel, accusing the Jewish state of \u2018ethnic cleansing\u2019 and \u2018genocide\u2019 as it has fought to defeat the terrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n

The electoral forces against human rights for Palestinians have been armed with huge amounts of cash. AIPAC dumped $15 million<\/a> into successfully defeating progressive New York Congressman Jamaal Bowman early this summer. While the spending amount set a record, the approach was far from unprecedented.<\/p>\n

In 2022, AIPAC beat Michigan Congressman Andy Levin, who had expressed support for Palestinian rights. \u201cI\u2019m really Jewish,\u201d Levin said<\/a> in an interview days before losing the Democratic primary, \u201cbut AIPAC can\u2019t stand the idea that I am the clearest, strongest Jewish voice in Congress standing for a simple proposition: that there is no way to have a secure, democratic homeland for the Jewish people unless we achieve the political and human rights of the Palestinian people.\u201d<\/p>\n

AIPAC excels at strategic lobbying on Capitol Hill, relentlessly prodding or threatening lawmakers and their staffs to stay on the right side of a Zionist hardline, always brandishing the proven capacity to launch fierce attacks \u2013 while conflating even understated criticism of Israel with antisemitism. The basic formulas are simple: Israel = Judaism. Opposition to Israel\u2019s lethal violence = antisemitism.<\/p>\n

Such formulaic manipulation has long been fundamental to claims that the Israeli government represents \u201cthe Jewish people\u201d and criticisms of its actions are \u201cantisemitic.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what the heroic Congresswoman Cori Bush is up against.<\/p>\n

Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He is the author of many books including War Made Easy. His latest book, <\/em>War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine<\/a>, was published in 2023 by The New Press.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Soon after the Gaza war began 10 months ago, a prominent newspaper columnist denounced Congresswoman Cori Bush under a headline declaring that \u201canti-Israel comments make her unfit for reelection.\u201d The piece appeared in the newspaper with the second-largest readership in Missouri, the Kansas City Star. Multimillion-dollar attacks on Bush followed. Bush\u2019s opponent, county prosecutor Wesley […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-48800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/112"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48800"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48803,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48800\/revisions\/48803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48800"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=48800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}