By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – A Republican bill to provide Israel with $17.6 billion in aid fell short of a required two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives on Tuesday. It had been proposed by House Speaker Mike Johnson as an alternative to a $118 billion bipartisan, package developed in the U.S. Senate to provide aid not only to Israel, but also humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza, as well as military aid to Ukraine, and funds for increased U.S. border security.
The measure received 250 votes in favor, which was about 40 votes shy of the total needed to attain a two-thirds majority. There were 180 votes in opposition, including Democratic U.S. Reps. Sara Jacobs and Scott Peters, two San Diegans who then sent explanations about why they voted against the measure.
Jacobs, a member of the Jewish community, said, “If we want the U.S. to lead on the world stage, we have to be able to address the numerous security challenges we’re facing simultaneously. This bill was a clear ploy by Speaker Johnson to use aid to Israel as a political wedge and to end all discussions about humanitarian aid to Gaza-where millions of Palestinians lack food, water, fuel, medicine and electricity – and support for Ukraine in their fight against {Vladimir] Putin’s aggression.”
“I support providing defensive aid to Israel – but that can and must be paired with our additional priorities and responsibilities,” Jacobs added.
Peters, who represents an adjacent district to Jacobs’ in San Diego County, said in a statement: “I am a staunch supporter of Israel’s right to defend itself and ensure the return of hostages. This bill accomplishes neither of those because it is going nowhere. It has no chance of becoming law and Republican leadership knows this but chose to play politics with Israel’s future, which is shameful. Republicans are using this bill as a cudgel to undercut more comprehensive legislation that funds Israeli defense, desperately needed humanitarian aid for Palestinian civilians, critical military assistance for Ukraine’s defense, and makes fixes at our border.”
Prior to the vote, President Biden had threatened to veto the stand-alone aid for Israel on much the same grounds as cited above by Jacobs and Peters. Johnson called Biden’s position “outrageous and shameful” in a time of Israel’s “greatest need.”
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At the San Diego County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, Imam Mohamed Taha Hassane of the Islamic Center of San Diego was reappointed to the Leon L. Williams County’s Human Relations Commission over the objections of an ad hoc group called Stand With Israel whose members decried the local Muslim leader’s defense of the October 7th massacre of Israeli civilians by Hamas.
After Israel sent troops into Gaza in response to the Hamas attack, the imam lectured to his followers that the events of Oct. 7 (in which over 1,200 civilians were murdered and another 240 kidnaped) was “a result of 75+ years of brutal Zionist occupation of Palestine and it is a result of the 16+ years of the brutal, barbaric blockade of Gaza. That’s it! Point! Nothing else to add because they are trying to tell us that what is going on now in Gaza is justified because of the attack. No! What is going on now is the result [of] the continuous brutal occupation of Palestine and Gaza. And when people are occupied, then the resistance is justified!”
Some of the people who objected to Imam Hassane’s reappointment to the commission, which is intended to foster good will among various groups, contended that the Jewish community had not been consulted on the matter, and asked for a continuance. Others like Dan Pritsker urged that Hassane be rejected outright.
Two Republican members of the technically non-partisan Board of Supervisors – Joel Anderson and Jim Desmond – agreed that a delay was appropriate, so they abstained from the vote. However, the three Democrats who form the majority on the Board – the Chair Nora Vargas, Vice Chair Terra Lawson-Remer, and the board’s newest member Monica Montgomery-Steppe, who nominated the imam – voted in favor of Hassane’s reappointment, carrying the day.
Pritsker, who moderates a Stand With Israel website on Facebook, said he was “very disappointed” by the vote “at a time with hate crimes on the rise and when communities are trying to live together.”
“I don’t see any reason for this rush,” he added. “A wrong appointee is worse than a delay.”
The Anti-Defamation League’s San Diego regional director is Fabienne Perlov, who was recently appointed to another seat on the Human Rights Commission. Asked her reaction to Hassane’s appointment, she commented on behalf of the ADL: “We hope the San Diego County Supervisors make every effort to ensure that the Human Relations Commission is free of all forms of hate and that it is not used as a platform to disseminate hate or glorify terrorism.”
Montgomery-Steppe said her nomination of Imam Hassane grew out of a recommendation by a committee with which she works on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Vargas, who otherwise has been considered a friend of the Jewish community, perhaps wanted to support the County Board of Supervisors’ newest member, who prevailed in a recent special election. She filled the seat from which Nathan Fletcher felt forced to resign after allegations were made that he had sexually harassed an employee of the Metropolitan Transit Development Board – allegations which he has denied.
But what can be said of Lawson-Remer, a member of the Jewish community who apparently is an anti-Zionist?
In 2021, Lawson-Remer wrote in a column: “Three of my great- grandparents fled to the U.S. one hundred years ago, escaping torture and mass killings against Jews in Ukraine, Lithuania, and Austria-Hungary. Some of their relatives stayed behind and did not survive, but my great-grandparents arrived penniless on Ellis Island to find a better life.”
“My great-grandmother worked in a dress factory, a sweatshop very much like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory,” Lawson-Remer continued in that column. “They worked hard to build opportunity slowly, generation by generation. My grandmother cried when she found out that I got into Yale. She could not believe that the great-granddaughter of persecuted and outcast Jews, who arrived here with nothing but the clothes on their backs, could be admitted to one of the most elite universities in the world.”
So here is my opinion: I wonder what Lawson-Remer’s grandma and great-grandparents would have thought of her reappointing a commissioner who believes that the mass murder, rape, and kidnapping of Jews in Israel on Oct. 7 was “justified.” My guess is that they would have called her position a shanda, a disgrace, and a big disservice to the memories of their own slain family members.
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Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via sdheritage@cox.net
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Good Editorial piece, actually fair, but with a major flaw. The two “Jewish” House Representatives should have been included in the condemnation of Lawson-Remer.
The American people deserve clean, separate funding bills to be voted on up or down. The Ukraine funding bill would never pass on its own. The phony Border legislation the same.
The sacrificial lamb to marry the ugly politics of Ukraine and the Border are the Jews in the middle.
Thank you for this concise piece on where our local Jewish representative stand. It will absolutely impact my future vote.
Sara Jacobs was bankrolled by her rich daddy, she has been a reliable vote for the leftwing progressive caucus and rarely if ever makes the correct vote. Lawson-Remer is as Left as they come and even though her progressive buddies have always been anti-Israeli she just can’t help being on the wrong side almost every time. Vote them out
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