California Democrats at the party’s state convention are to debate a resolution blaming Israel for promoting the anti-Semitism which led to the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre.
David Mandel, a California Assembly delegate, authored the amendment titled “Commending the House for resolving to fight all racism and bigotry and for resisting the false conflation of support for Palestinian rights with antisemitism,” which was obtained by Fox News.
The draft resolution says the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting in October 2018 was “the culmination of an alarming re-emergence of virulent antisemitism that is a core element of historical and currently resurgent white supremacism in the United States and around the world.”
It continues, “Israeli government, along with some of its U.S. backers, welcomed support from Christian fundamentalist and ultra-right groups in the United States and abroad, dangerously ignoring their deeply rooted antisemitism while aligning with their virulent Islamophobia.”
“The Israeli government and its supporters here seem to be embracing the right-wing and not caring what they say about anything else — Islamophobia, dog whistles for anti-Semitism,” Mandel told Fox. “That, I think, does indirectly lead to some of the violence.”
The convention’s Resolutions Committee will determine whether the resolution is adopted. If the committee kills it, Mandel could gather signatures to bring the resolution to the convention floor for debate. “Most of the 3,000 or 4,000 delegates at the convention will agree with us,” Mandel predicted.
In 2017, Mandel helped pass a resolution at the convention to condemn “occupation of the Palestinian lands” by the Israeli government. Mandel is a liberal attorney and American Israeli citizen who lived in Israel for 10 years.
