All Show, No Substance

That is the Senator Booker I ran against as a Green in 2020. And the U.S. Senator many tried to influence to take a strong position against the ICE Detention Center in Newark, New Jersey. And who wanted him to take a strong position in favor of diplomacy with Iran and the Iran Deal. While Senator Booker did sign on to the deal, he waited until there were sufficient signatures for it to pass. And when Trump ripped up the deal during his first term, Senator Booker did not move to revive it. And Trump and Netanyahu are again advocating for what would be a disastrous war with Iran. Where are Senator Booker’s statements against expanding the war on Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and to Iran? He is silent on that, too.

And yes. The same U.S. Senator activists for peace have been pushing to speak out against the on-going U.S.-Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people for months now. And early on, in 2020, when Senator Booker kicked off his campaign for U.S. Senate, speaking about “justice and equality for all”, Palestinian activists attended to call him out — justice for all, they stated, meant justice for all, including Palestinians.

This is also the same Senator Booker who took to the Senate Floor at 7pm on March 31st and finished speaking 25 hours and 5 minutes later, and somehow managed to do so without mentioning a word about Gaza, the Palestinians, or genocide. Nor did he mention anything about those that Trump has had kidnapped and deported for speaking out against the genocide. Yet, Senator Booker claimed his speech was designed to show moral integrity in light of many of Donald Trump’s policies enacted through Executive Order since he took office on January 20, 2025.

Many seized upon his marathon speech for inspiration because the policies Trump enacted and Booker attacked needed to be criticized. However, if one wants to be considered a person of morality and integrity, one also must oppose genocide! And just a day or two later, Senator Booker voted to send $8.8 billion more in weapons and military aid to Israel so Netanyahu and the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) could continue its slaughter of Palestinians and its butchering of children. And then the next Saturday, April 5th, Senator Booker held a Town Hall meeting in Bergen County, a Town Meeting interrupted multiple times by anti-genocide activists. Instead of answering their concerns, Senator Booker had the activists removed by armed security.

What is it about Senator Booker that exempts him for being held to account for his position on the genocide? For 6 years now!! Why do so many voters choose to shrug their shoulders at his masterful efforts to duck any meaningful question on the genocide or on Iran, because they can’t stand Trump?

He set out to break a record for the length of his speech, although he was not blocking a piece of legislation or a presidential nomination. He did break Strom Thurmond’s record for the length of his speech, but he still didn’t provide an answer to the many questions his constituents have, in particular his on-going support for a brutal genocide, one in which over 18,000 children have been killed, one in which whole neighborhoods have been razed and one in which, the other night, as bombs were dropped on Gaza City and Palestinian bodies were sent sky high as a result of the explosions.

It’s one thing to criticize a policy by criticizing the politics of the opposing political party and the one who has promulgated so many Executive Orders. That’s an “easy way” to score points with your party’s political base. And since Senator Booker is running for re-election in 2026, with an eye perhaps toward another run for U.S. President, I think it’s safe to say that the March 31- April 1st marathon could serve as a campaign kick-off.

Yes, yes, I know. The nation had this same toxic debate during last year’s elections. People criticized those who would not vote for Kamala Harris and the Democrats because of her and Biden’s stubborn refusal to do anything to end the arms shipments to Israel. How quickly people forget how the Democrats brought the country and the world to this point, so that it could be handed off to Trump to propose forced displacement and extermination of the Palestinian people. How can either mainstream political party claim to be providing moral leadership when both the Dems and the Republicans supports the genocide, support violent repression of people´s first amendment rights and advocate for total ethnic cleansing and erasure of the Palestinian, both in Gaza and the West Bank.

This is nothing new for Booker. It has been an issue for him for as long as he´s been U.S. Senator, if not before. In 2014, Israel, as usual with the full support of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, provided bombs and money for Operation Protective Edge, against Gaza. That operation lasted for 50 days and resulted in the death of 2000 Palestinians, the majority of whom were children. This author and 12 others engaged in non-violent civil disobedience at the offices of Senator Booker and then Senator Robert Menendez. For as much time as the authorities permitted, we read the names of as many of the 800 children killed that we had on a list. We were in mourning for their lives.

Booker said nothing then and he said nothing in 2025. It seems many pro-Booker, anti-Trump folks want those of us who are independent voters, i.e. Green Party, to “forget”, “ignore”, “trivialize” the genocide and support the Democrats anyway, because Trump can and will do so much damage on other issues.

But my question is why must we continue to settle for these horrible choices? Why must the Democrats continue to show us how weak they are when it comes to opposing genocide and continued war? Imagine voting for the Democrats, a party that sent approximately 14,000 bombs and $22 billion to devastate the Gaza Strip and probably, in time, the West Bank.

Booker embodies this issue and represents that fatal split in the movement to derail Trump’s policies.

Why not change direction on genocide and war? Why did the April 5th “Hands Off” marches ignore the issue of genocide and even call to protect NATO, an organization whose relevance should have ended with the end of the Cold War? Why were there two separate marches in D.C., one led by Democrats and the other, continuing to advocate for an end to the ugly, dehumanizing, illegal genocide of the Palestinian people?

This morning we woke to the news that 14-year old Palestinian-American Amer Mohammad Saada Rabee was killed on the West Bank. Amer formerly lived in Saddle Brook, but was killed in Turmus Ayya, a town where many Palestinian Americans live or own homes. Where’s the outrage, Senator Booker?

Where’s the outrage over the IOF murders of 15 rescue workers in ambulances and a fire engine in Gaza recently? Video footage rescued from one of those murdered puts the lie to the IOF’s story about these vehicles not being clearly marked and “looking suspicious.”

We really must do better than this!!