Why isn’t everyone talking about the hostages?
Rep. Josh Gottheimer puts their fate front and center at a talk at the Jewish Center of Teaneck
Congressman Josh Gottheimer (D-Dist. 5) spoke on March 11 at the Jewish Center of Teaneck.
He began by talking about Adi Alexander, the father of Israeli-American Edan Alexander, an IDF soldier who was captured by Hamas on October 7 and is still being held in Gaza. “Edan is 21 years old,” Mr. Gottheimer said. He had just been on the phone with Mr. Alexander, discussing the latest updates. “There were rumors a deal had been struck” for Edan’s release, but it became clear “pretty quickly that they weren’t accurate.
“Every time I talk to him, I think about the incredible strength that this family has, and the positivity, and how they wake up every day and put one foot in front of the other, just staying focused and positive about Edan coming home.
“Edan’s a graduate of Tenafly High School,” Mr. Gottheimer continued. “He’s just like any other American kid — he went to the prom, he was on the swim team. I’m obsessively focused on getting him home. And on getting all the American hostages home.”
Mr. Gottheimer thinks about the fact that “nobody really talks about it,” he said. “We have an American held hostage by terrorists, four dead Americans still being held in Gaza, and for the last 528 days, it hasn’t been a big part of the conversation.
“Why is it that we don’t talk about these Americans as Americans?” Mr. Gottheimer asked. “If they’d been captured in, let’s say, Switzerland, would we be obsessively focused on Americans being captured even if they were also Swiss or whatever they were? Or is it the fact that they’re Jews?”
Mr. Gottheimer “believes deeply in the importance of the U.S.-Israel relationship” because he “took an oath to protect the United States. I’ve said this to my colleagues who were not where they should be on the issue — you took that oath to protect America, you must support Israel and the relationship. Put aside [that Israel is a] champion of democracy, and of progressive ideals, of women, of the LGBTQ+ community. Put aside the fact that there are Arabs in the Knesset. As we see with the Houthis, and with other proxies of one of our top enemies, Iran, the parent company of terror, we have a lot of people out there who want to destroy America, who want to undermine our freedom, undermine our democracy.”
Israel is a “stalwart ally who has fought the terrorists year in and year out, protected our interests in the region, and fought back against evil and those who want to undermine us,” Mr. Gottheimer continued. “The Houthis’ plan doesn’t lead with death to the Jews — it’s death to the U.S.A. and then death to the Jews.” Hezbollah has made it very clear that the ultimate goal was to destroy America, he added. “Israel was just a pit stop along the way.”
Mr. Gottheimer has been focused on “making sure that Israel has what she needs to crush the terrorists and protect our interests,” he said. “And it’s not just about protecting our interests there, but also here. And making sure that we also have what we need to fight back against all forms of hate — Islamophobia, antisemitism, antizionism.”
In response to a question about the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which he helped introduce, Mr. Gottheimer explained that the legislation, which concretizes the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism into federal anti-discrimination law, is important because it clarifies what is and what is not antisemitism. The IHRA definition has been adopted by more than 30 countries and more than 30 of the 50 states, he added, and he finds it “outrageous” that the legislation has not yet been passed by either the federal government or the state of New Jersey.
He shared another questioner’s concern about Israel becoming a partisan issue, he said, but added that while “the perception is that a large percentage don’t support the U.S.-Israel relationship, that couldn’t be further from the truth.” There are people on the fringes on both sides who don’t support the relationship, he said, but a large majority do. He continues to voice his disagreement to some in his party who don’t, he added. “We should not be afraid to call them out.”
Mr. Gottheimer also fielded questions about local issues, including congestion pricing. He insisted on referring to the program as the “congestion tax” because “it is a tax.” It’s very expensive, he said, and hard-working people are having a hard time paying $9 a day to enter the zone. New Jersey and the federal government are fighting the program in court, and he thinks they have a good case because New York “didn’t do a proper review of the congestion tax” and consider factors including the environmental impact on Northern New Jersey and the traffic impact on the George Washington Bridge.
As Mr. Gottheimer paused between questions, a small group of anti-Israel protesters who had gathered outside the shul, most of whom appeared to be members of Neturei Karta, the fringe ultra-Orthodox anti-Israel group, could be heard faintly inside the room. “Someone’s screaming outside about the congestion tax,” Mr. Gottheimer joked to a burst of laughter.
Mr. Gottheimer responded to a question about the affordability of living in New Jersey with “life in New Jersey is way too expensive and it’s costing us jobs and people.” It’s important to lower taxes, he said. “We can save a lot of money without cutting things we actually care about if we just run a more efficient state.”
Mr. Gottheimer is one of a number of Democrats running in the primary for his party’s nomination for governor. Phil Murphy is reaching the end of his second term and cannot run for reelection. There was no mention of the gubernatorial race during the evening, presumably because such mention could be taken for an endorsement and would be improper because the meeting was in a shul.
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