Representative Jamaal Bowman (D., N.Y.) said he was “starstruck” meeting Norman Finkelstein, an anti-Israel activist who said the Hamas attack of October 7 “warms every fiber of my soul.”
Last Sunday, Bowman attended a lecture at a New York Islamic center on “Palestine Oct 7th and After,” featuring Finkelstein. Bowman gushed that he was “a bit starstruck” meeting the anti-Israel writer, Jewish Insider first reported. The congressman also praised the other panelists for “being here and coming to Yonkers and delivering the truth to us.”
On October 7, Finkelstein compared the massacre of Israelis committed by Hamas to that of Jews stuck in the Warsaw Ghetto amid the Holocaust. “If we honor John Brown’s armed resistance to slavery; if we honor the Jews who revolted in the Warsaw Ghetto — then moral consistency commands that we honor the heroic resistance in Gaza. I, for one, will never begrudge — on the contrary, it warms every fiber of my soul — the scenes of Gaza’s smiling children as their arrogant Jewish supremacist oppressors have, finally, been humbled,” the activist wrote on Substack the day of the atrocities.
“The stars above in heaven are looking kindly down. Glory, glory, hallelujah. The souls of Gaza go marching on!” he said.
Finkelstein has defended his remarks saying that he was unaware of the full scale of the atrocities until days later. “I’m not going to force you to believe it, and I’m not going to even try to impose my will, I’m simply saying — as a factual matter, speaking for myself — I was not aware that the numbers [casualties] had been beyond 50 when I made that statement,” he told an incredulous Piers Morgan in late November.
“I will further state that, to my knowledge — I could be mistaken — that I did not make another statement until the numbers started to grow and, I admit, I have said to you, it was a moral quandary for me.”
Bowman is a member of “The Squad,” a set of progressive House Democrats that includes Representative Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.). The group has criticized the Biden administration and supporters of Israel’s response to the 10/7 atrocities.
“If you’re not voting for a cease-fire,” Bowman reportedly told the audience during last weekend’s lecture, “you are complicit in the mass murder of women and children.”
“No one is telling the truth,” the representative added. “The fact that you all have put together this incredible panel to tell us the truth about what has been happening there for 75 years is incredibly important for this community. We have fed ourselves a myth and a lie and propaganda as facts, and truth and knowledge, and as a result of that, people are consistently dying and being slaughtered and killed, mostly women and children.”
In early December, the House voted to censure Bowman after he pulled a fire alarm in what Republicans argue was an attempt to delay an important vote. The motion accused Bowman of disrupting “the work of the Congress as a vote was underway” and denounced his actions as a “theatrical attempt to cause panic, therefore endangering the safety and well-being of Members of the House, of staff, and members of the public on the Capitol grounds.”
At the time, the House was voting on a stopgap spending bill that would have averted a government shutdown when Bowman pulled the alarm on September 30. House Democrats failed to block the censure resolution that was introduced by Lisa McClain (R., Mich.). “It’s painfully obvious to myself and my colleagues and the American people that the Republican Party is unserious and unable to legislate,” Bowman said. “In no way did I obstruct official proceedings.”
In late October, Bowman was charged by Capitol Police with a misdemeanor for pulling a fire alarm under false pretenses. He pleaded guilty and agreed to pay a $1,000 fine.
Bowman said in an earlier affidavit filed in a Washington, D.C., Superior Court that he triggered the alarm while attempting to open a locked door and didn’t tell anyone about the incident until the Sergeant at Arms contacted him. The New York representative denied any intention “to cause a fire alarm,” “to cause a security concern,” or disruption aimed at obstructing a congressional proceeding.