Should Markey have been booed for calling for ‘de-escalation’ in Israel-Hamas war?
In this awful war, in these volatile times, all it takes is one sentence to cross a line to the wrong side.
At a Boston Common rally on Monday, Senator Edward J. Markey at first echoed the call of the state’s leading politicians for solidarity with Israel after it was attacked by Hamas on Saturday: “As President Biden and all the elected officials here reaffirm this weekend, Israel has the support of the United States. That is a bond that will never be broken,” Markey said, according to a transcript of remarks supplied by his staff.
He went on to condemn “the heinous attack” that “saw the targeting and vicious murder by Hamas of innocent civilians, of children and of seniors.” He described Hamas as “violent extremists” who want continued instability, “not normalization … That is why the United States and the international community must keep pushing for diplomacy and the ending of civilian casualties on all sides.”
Then came the sentence that triggered deep and sustained boos from the pro-Israel crowd: “There must be a de-escalation of the current violence,” Markey said. With that, Markey — who has voted for US aid for the Iron Dome, Israel’s missile defense system, since 2010, and whose wife, Dr. Susan Blumenthal, is Jewish — made headlines as a left-leaning Democrat who stopped short of expressing full support for Israel and how it responds to an appalling attack on its citizens.
The boos are understandable. But are they fair? Right now, the quest for justice and revenge are prime motivators for Israel. But given Markey’s history of support for Israel, and the big, long-term picture in the Middle East, is it really so terrible to talk about de-escalating violence? In The New York Times, columnist Thomas L. Friedman, who has covered Israel and the Middle East for 50 years, urges Israeli restraint for strategic reasons.
“What Israel’s worst enemies — Hamas and Iran — want is for Israel to invade Gaza and get enmeshed in a strategic overreach there,” Friedman writes. “We are talking house-to-house fighting that would undermine whatever sympathy Israel has garnered on the world stage, deflect world attention from the murderous regime in Tehran and force Israel to stretch its forces to permanently occupy Gaza and the
West Bank.”
Through a spokesperson, Markey declined to talk about the reaction to his words. But in local political circles, it got attention. “I was shocked at the response,” said Michael Goldman, a longtime political consultant who, like Markey, grew up in Malden. “I’ve known Ed Markey for more than 50 years, and Jews and Israel have not had a better and more consistent friend.”
Describing himself as “a Jew who is not religious,” Goldman said he is, of course, repulsed by the stomach-turning atrocities that are now being reported about the Hamas attack. But, he said, “this is one Jew who thinks the booing of Markey was wrong. We should always say we should figure out a way to find peace.” Goldman also said he does not think it’s wrong to think about somehow, someway, someday, achieving some kind of peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians — from which he excludes Hamas, the terrorist group that executed the attacks on Israel.
From a purely political perspective, you can say Markey reaped what he sowed. In 2020, he won a fight for his Senate seat against former representative Joe Kennedy III by fully embracing the left wing of his party. Key to his victory was the endorsement he got from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, one of the leading members of “The Squad” — the name given to a controversial group of far-left progressives in Congress. So, for Markey, it’s live by “The Squad” and, politically, die by it.
Right now, Ocasio-Cortez seems to be trying to separate herself from the more extremist, anti-Israel views of some Palestinian supporters. But the overall Squad rhetoric can make it an uncomfortable place to be. As reported by Axios, Representatives Cori Bush of Missouri and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota have called for an end to US aid to Israel. Representative Rashida Tlaib, a Palestinian American from Michigan, also said that unless funds are cut off, “this heartbreaking cycle of violence will continue.”
Meanwhile, Representative Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, another Squad member, called for “an immediate ceasefire & de-escalation” on the X social media platform. On X, Markey also said, “We must do everything in our power to deescalate violence, engage diplomacy, and avert bloodshed.” However, Markey has not used the word “cease-fire,” which a spokesperson describes as “daylight” — and “daylight” is what Markey seems to be searching for.
After all, all politics is local, as a Massachusetts politician once famously said. At the same rally where Markey was booed, he seemed to be called out by Representative Jake Auchincloss, a fellow member of the Massachusetts delegation, whose name often comes up in speculation about future Senate candidates. In his remarks, Auchincloss said, “Now is not the time for equivocation . ... Deescalation is not possible when they are taking hostages.” In an interview with MassLive after the rally, Auchincloss called his remarks a “prebuttal to a narrative that I don’t want to build — that both sides need to lay down their arms. And that both sides have equal responsibility.”
That’s not what Markey was saying. But he should tell Massachusetts voters what he meant, if he still believes it, and why. The boos shouldn’t silence him.