Elizabeth Warren Agrees To ‘Ending The Occupation’
Senator Elizabeth Warren speaks on stage at 2019 ESSENCE Festival Presented By Coca-Cola on July 06, 2019 Image by Getty Images
Elizabeth Warren Image by Getty Images
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Sen. Elizabeth Warren, whose presidential candidacy has rallied in recent weeks, told two Jewish anti-occupation activists “yes” when they asked her for support.
Becca Lubow, a student and a member of the IfNotNow Jewish anti-occupation movement, and a companion approached the Massachusetts Democrat on Monday at an event in Peterborough, New Hampshire, the first primary state.
“Hi, we are American Jews and we really love the way that you are fighting corruption and we would really love it if you also push the Israeli government to end the occupation,” Lubow said. The encounter was captured in a videothat IfNotNow soon posted on social media.
“Yes, yes,” Warren said.
“Excellent,” Lubow said.
“So, I’m there,” Warren said.
Warren is close to the Jewish and pro-Israel communities in Boston, but also has been among the more outspoken Democratic candidates criticizing the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. She was among the first to speak out in April when Netanyahu pledged to annex parts of the West Bank.
The Republican Jewish Coalition scored Warren for agreeing to a formulation that included the word “occupation.”
“Sen. Warren has aligned herself with the rapidly-growing leftwing, anti-Israel base of her party,” RJC said in a statement.
The term “occupied” was once not considered objectionable among Israelis to describe Israel’s control of lands claimed by the Palestinians, used at times even by hawks like the late prime minister Ariel Sharon. More recently, Israel’s government has preferred the term “disputed” or to not refer to the land’s status at all.
Warren’s campaign recently took on staff a founder of IfNotNow, Max Berger, drawing criticism from Republicans and the right-wing pro-Israel community.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
