U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal has condemned Israel as a racist state, and that the Palestinian people deserve self-determination and autonomy.
Speaking on Saturday on a panel at Netroots Nation, an annual progressive activist conference in Chicago, Jayapal said, “As somebody who’s been in the streets and participated in a lot of demonstrations, I want you to know that we have been fighting to make it clear that Israel is a racist state, that the Palestinian people deserve self-determination and autonomy.”
“The dream of a two-state solution is slipping away from us, it does not even feel possible,” Jayapal said to a mixture of applause and chants of “free Palestine.”
Jayapal told the crowd that “while we may have arguments with whether or not some of us on stage are fighting hard enough, there is an organized opposition on the other side – and it isn’t the people that are on this stage.”
“It is people that are literally trying to make sure that we do not take the positions we take, that the rest of the progressive caucus has been pushing and pushing,” she continued.
Jayapal is a vocal opponent of Israel’s annexation of the West Bank. She has called upon Congress to condition military aid to Israel on not using U.S. taxpayer dollars to violate Palestinian human rights.
Her comments come as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush have all confirmed will boycott Israeli President Isac Herzog’s speech later this week to Congress in protest of Israeli human rights abuses.
The sharp criticism from the lawmaker from Washington state is one the highest-level condemnations of Apartheid Israel.
