WASHINGTON – When U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum was growing up, the violent “troubles” in Northern Ireland divided families with Irish heritage like hers.
The conflict, born out of the desire of Catholics in Northern Ireland to join the Irish Republic instead of remaining part of the United Kingdom, played out differently in her home, where her mother was a Lutheran and her father Catholic.
If her parents could accept each other’s beliefs and backgrounds, why couldn’t other nations in conflict over religion also be able to settle their differences, McCollum wondered.
That concern over conflict resolution and human rights led her to become an early and vocal critic of Israel on Capitol Hill, including its treatment of juvenile detainees and blockade of humanitarian aid in its conflict with Palestinians in the region.
“I’ve always been very interested in human rights,” McCollum, D-4th District, said. “Even as a kid.”
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When she began criticizing Israel 25 years ago, McCollum was among a minority of lawmakers from her party.
But no more as McCollum’s fellow Democrats have recently moved toward the Minnesota lawmaker on the question of whether the United States should continue its largely unconditional support of Israel.
Public sentiment on the war in Gaza has also shifted in the two years since the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel, and Democratic voters’ support for the Jewish state is dropping off steeply.
A recent Pew Research Center poll indicated that 8 in 10 Americans say they are at least somewhat concerned about starvation among Palestinians in Gaza, Israeli military strikes killing Palestinian civilians and the remaining Israeli hostages not being returned to Israel.
Even American Jews sharply disapprove of Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza, according to a recent Washington Post poll, with 61% saying Israel has committed war crimes and about 4 in 10 saying the country is guilty of genocide against the Palestinians.
Because of the shift in public attitude, the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) — which has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to support lawmakers who offered unconditional support for the Jewish state, and on attacks on McCollum — has suddenly lost much of its influence on Democrats on Capitol Hill.
For example, House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., has recently accepted the endorsement of an AIPAC foe called J Street, a group that supports Palestinian statehood and is highly critical of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Jeffries had been an ardent supporter of Israel who received $866,550 from AIPAC in the last campaign cycle, according to campaign finance website Open Secrets.
‘No fan of Hamas’
McCollum began her activism concerning Israel in 2006 when she first sponsored a bill that would rope off U.S. funds to the Jewish state that were used to detain Palestinian children. She has since sponsored similar legislation in every Congress.
Her concern for these children began when humanitarian supplies to Palestinians became limited in a bill approved by Congress aimed at punishing Hamas after it won Palestinian legislative elections that year.
“It would not even allow cancer drugs for children in the occupied territories,” she said.
McCollum said she is “no fan of Hamas” but that the bill was “a step too far.” Trips to the Middle East — one sponsored by J Street — followed. McCollum discovered that wheelchairs and even baby strollers were not allowed entry to the territories because Israel determined those mundane items “could be turned into weapons,” she said.
And she said she witnessed other humanitarian aid blocked from the territories. “There were boxes of diapers, there were boxes of formula just rotting,” McCollum said. “I started speaking out.”
Then there was the 2013 UNICEF report about an increasing number of allegations of ill-treatment of Palestinian children in Israeli military detention. “They were as young as 13 … signing confessions in Hebrew,” McCollum said. “They don’t even speak Hebrew.”
McCollum’s activism put her on AIPAC’s radar as early as 2006 when she was one of two members of the House International Relations Committee to vote against the bill that took aim at Hamas. That was far before the organization took aim at another Minnesota lawmaker who was critical of Israel — U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-5th District.
In the summer of 2023, prior to a speech by Israeli President Issac Herzog to a joint session of Congress, she declined to support a Republican-led resolution reaffirming U.S. support for Israel, voting present.
More recently, AIPAC funded an attack ad on Facebook that featured the images of McCollum, Omar and U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., the only Palestinian American in Congress.
The ad warned that the “radicals in the Democratic Party are pushing their anti-Semitic and anti-Israel policies down the throats of the American people.” It included a link to a petition urging supporters to “protect our Israeli allies especially as they face threats from Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS and — maybe more sinister — right here in the U.S. Congress.”
“When you speak out, people will paint you as antisemitic,” McCollum said. “That didn’t work well in my district, but that can be very intimidating.”
McCollum was also placed in the crosshairs of the Israel lobby for trying to get an accounting of how Israel spent its nonmilitary U.S. aid.
‘A humanitarian crisis beyond comprehension’
Negotiations to finalize a deal based on President Donald Trump’s Gaza ceasefire plan are reportedly underway in Egypt on the second anniversary of the Hamas raid on a kibbutz in Israel that started the war.
McCollum’s statement to mark the anniversary said “since the events of October 7, the world has changed. Prime Minister Netanyahu has used this horrific tragedy to further the goals of his extremist right-wing government and has triggered a humanitarian crisis beyond comprehension.”
She implored the Trump administration “to broker a true, long-lasting peace agreement.”
McCollum told MinnPost she’s hopeful for an end to hostilities. But she has some misgivings. “Some (in Hamas) will work towards peace and some will not work towards peace,” she said.
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She also said Trump’s 20-point plan has “no guarantees on boundaries” of Gaza and “no guarantees” on the Palestinians’ right to return to Gaza from where many have fled, including a refugee camp in Jordan.
There are other sticking points. Hard-liners within Netanyahu’s governing coalition want to retain control of Gaza and reconstruct Jewish settlements there. Hamas is unlikely to agree to the condition it lays down its guns.
Meanwhile, trust between the two sides at war is virtually nonexistent. Last month, Israel attempted to assassinate Hamas’ negotiating team with an airstrike on Doha.
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