Democratic New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker has said he is “shaken and angered” while describing his experience in Israel after Hamas, a Palestinian extremist group, launched a deadly attack near the Gaza border over the weekend.

Spokespeople for Booker and Rep. Dan Goldman, both Democrats, had earlier confirmed that the lawmakers were in Israel as the attack unfolded. Both left the country safely shortly after the attacks began, their offices said.

Booker was scheduled to speak at a summit on the Abraham Accords on Tuesday and arrived in Israel on Friday before the event.

On Sunday, Booker posted a video describing his experience to X, formerly known as Twitter, saying that while he and his team are now safe, “like many we are shaken, angered, and heartbroken by the hundreds killed, the thousands injured, those taken hostage, and all who are directly affected by these sickening terrorist attacks.”

  • mwguy
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    1 year ago

    Want Gazan to stop starving? Ban aid from Gaza from going to their leadership’s offshore accounts.

      • mwguy
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        1 year ago

        This is Gaza. Gaza has no settlers and the 1967 borders. This is the area that has given Palestinians their home and lands back.

        • SulaymanF@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Gaza is a refugee camp after stealing all the surrounding lands. Arabs were kicked of out Yafa and the new settlers called it Tel Aviv. Same with Beer Al-Save, renamed to Beer Sheva. The list goes on. They gave a tiny sliver of Gaza “back,” herded the population into it and then closed all the borders, blocking imports and even food and covid vaccines from entering.

          This is known as a Bantustan and has been tried before by apartheid South Africa to help divert blame.

          • mwguy
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            1 year ago

            Israeli can’t have closed all the borders, they have an international border with Egypt. And the Gaza deal was orchestrated by Israel’s leftwing political coalition to prove that a deal based around the 1967 borders and political autonomy for Palestinians could lead to lasting peace. Since the Second Infintada, Israel has had a painful reminder that no amount of concessions can secure peace.

            • SulaymanF@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              A left leaning coalition may have brokered the deal, but the Right successfully undermined it (settlers committed violence that prompted reprisal attacks and then attacked holy sites of worship prompting Hamas to launch attacks) and then the rightwing prime minister broke it completely.

              Anyone who studies Middle East history knows that extremists on both sides undo the mainstream’s actual work and roll back their successes. Yitzhak Rabin worked on a peace plan but was assassinated by an Israeli extremist, and his supporters are now in the current Israeli cabinet. Abbas had a credible peace deal but the talks were scuttled by individuals committing similar violence. Now we know Netanyahu actually admitted he helped grow Hamas so it would destabilize the PA and allow him to stall talks while increasing settlements.

              • mwguy
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                1 year ago

                settlers committed violence that prompted reprisal attacks and then attacked holy sites of worship prompting Hamas to launch attacks

                In Gaza?

                • SulaymanF@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  The settler attacks have been historically in both, but when Israel yanked settlers out of Gaza they moved to West Bank and attacks there rose. Theres been a shocking rise in settler violence this year with settlers harsssing and assaulting unarmed Palestinians in West Bank, and multiple raids on Al Aqsa compound, which is what launched Hamas’ most recent attack.

                  • mwguy
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                    1 year ago

                    So Israel, specifically Israel’s left wing parties come to power and, enacted a policy that completely eliminated settler attacks amongst dozens of other things, to prove that a peace deal based on the '67 borders can work; by doing so at a small scale (Gaza). Then violence from the region that had all of its settlers evicted massively rises while violence from the regions not in the peace deal generally continues to trend downwards.

                    And the fact that the policy to remove settlers and settlements hasn’t been enacted Palestine-wide is being used by the region that caused the failure to justify additional violence? Is that the logic?

          • mwguy
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            1 year ago

            By brain dead you mean factual. Israeli forcibly removed every last settler, some at gunpoint, from Gaza in the mid 2000s.

      • S_204@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        And let them murder Israelis. Sounds like you’ve really thought that through. They’re terrorists. They’re currently murdering women and children and saying they’ll live stream it. They’re not going to just stop murdering, they’ve turned down peace offers enough time that you should see that.

      • mwguy
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        1 year ago

        Gaza receives enough aid money where nobody in Gaza should be poor or hungry. The structure of how that aid is disbursed is the primary reason Gazans are poor.

    • NoneOfUrBusiness@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Take a look at Israel’s blockade policy first. I’m not saying Hamas is the role model for governments everywhere, but the blockade causes actual resource scarcity.

      • mwguy
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        1 year ago

        The blockade came in response to massive building of rockets instead of aid use for good.

        • SulaymanF@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          You have it backwards. Israel announced the blockade in 2007 after Hamas won the election, then the rockets happened after.

      • ReginaPhalange@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The moment israel lift the blockade - hamas gets nukes/dirty bombs.

        Let’s not kid anyone - the “resolution” to the conflict is that one side dies and the other surives, or the other 'resolution" that will never happen - both sides drop nationally backed religion doctrine, no one gets Jerusalem and no one gets religious sites - and jordan and egypt gives up more land so a 50/50 split will stay fair.

        Knowing that none of the above will ever happen, expect the next 100 years to stay absolutely the same.

        • NoneOfUrBusiness@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          and jordan and egypt gives up more land so a 50/50 split will stay fair.

          Why doesn’t Israel give up land for a 50/50 split? Anyway that aside, nobody’s been asking for a 50/50 split for a while now. You can look up the 2000 Camp David summit for a list of sticking points between Israel and Palestine.

          Also Hamas has been getting weapons from Iran for ages and they haven’t used nukes to my knowledge, so I’m not sure where you got that from.

          And more importantly, just because they somehow can’t lift the blockade doesn’t mean they need to block legitimate humanitarian aid. Actually go look up their blockade policies. Even if you believe a blockade is necessary, Israel’s implementation is absolutely fucked.

    • quindraco@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Completely non-functional solution. The (starving) people of Gaza aren’t allowed to vote in any kind of election.

      • mwguy
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        1 year ago

        Not because of Israel, because of blind support of Hamas from the West and Arab governments.