Georgia Senate Democrat candidates Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff will campaign Saturday with Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA), who in 2016 compared Israeli settlers to “termites.”
Warnock and Ossoff will attend a “Drive-in Rally” hosted by the Rockdale and Newton County Democrats with Johnson.
Johnson’s rally with Ossoff and Warnock raises questions about Johnson’s controversial remarks, including his own commentary on Israeli settlers.
At an event in 2016 sponsored by the Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation — which supports the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS), Johnson said:
There has been a steady [stream], almost like termites can get into a residence and eat before you know that you’ve been eaten up and you fall in on yourself, there has been settlement activity that has marched forward with impunity and at an ever increasing rate to the point where it has become alarming.
…
It has come to the point that occupation, with highways that cut through Palestinian land, with walls that go up, with the inability or the restriction, with the illegality of Palestinians being able to travel on those roads and those roads cutting off Palestinian neighborhoods from each other. And then with the building of walls and the building of check points that restrict movement of Palestinians. We’ve gotten to the point where the thought of a Palestinian homeland gets further and further removed from reality.
Johnson also said that “Jewish people” also frequently steal land and property from Palestinians.
“You see one home after another being appropriated by Jewish people who come in to claim that land just because somebody did not spend the night there,” Johnson said.
He added, “The home their [Palestinian] ancestors lived in for generations becomes an Israeli home and a flag goes up.”
Johnson also compared Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman to President Donald Trump.
“The fact is the Israeli government, which is the most right-wing government ever to exist in the state of Israel in its history, the most right-wing government, you got a guy like Trump who is now the minister of defense in Israel calling the shots on defense,” Johnson said.
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.
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