Ritchie Torres is a voice of sanity, but will the Left hear his message?
Last year, Torres won the seat being vacated by the retiring Jose Serrano, who had held it since 1990. It is one of the bluest districts in the nation, having been held by a Democrat almost continuously since 1927.
Torres made headlines last month when, during the Gaza conflict, he gave a passionate defense of Israel on the floor of Congress. Clips of his speeches went viral, and he engaged in a brief Twitter spat with Representative Jamaal Bowman, a fellow freshman Democrat from Yonkers, over the right of Israel to fight back against Hamas.
Torres acknowledges he is being attacked by members of his party for his views, saying that supporting Israel is “not for the faint-hearted,” but he is determined to show that loving Israel is not a partisan issue.
Views on Israel vary widely. I am particularly vocal and visible in my advocacy for Israel — for me, Israel is a progressive oasis in the Middle East, it is an oasis of a multiracial democracy. The portrayal of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as black-versus-white is deeply misleading and intellectually dishonest because it ignores the reality of Israel as a multiracial democracy.
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