PHILADELPHIA – The Democrats continue to have an Israel problem.
On the sidelines of the Democratic National Convention here, Georgia Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson reportedly compared Israeli settlers – meaning Jews living in the West Bank or eastern Jerusalem – to termites.
Speaking at a Philadelphia meeting of the US Campaign to end the Israeli Occupation, a group that supports the boycott movement targeting Israel, Johnson made the offensive remarks.
He complained that “there has been a steady [stream], almost like termites can get into a residence and eat before you know that you’ve been eaten up and you fall in on yourself, there has been settlement activity that has marched forward with impunity and at an ever increasing rate to the point where it has become alarming.”
“It has come to the point that occupation, with highways that cut through Palestinian land, with walls that go up, with the inability or the restriction, with the illegality of Palestinians being able to travel on those roads and those roads cutting off Palestinian neighborhoods from each other,” Johnson continued.
“And then with the building of walls and the building of checkpoints that restrict movement of Palestinians. We’ve gotten to the point where the thought of a Palestinian homeland gets further and further removed from reality.”
The Anti-Defamation League reacted on Twitter by calling for Johnson to retract his “offensive, unhelpful characterization.” READ MORE
