Last week, Coalition for Jewish Values condemned Congressman Jamaal Bowman’s (D-NY) decision to withdraw his co-sponsorship of the Israel Relations Normalization Act, and the 29 “progressive” organizations that called for Congress to repudiate the Abraham Accords. The Washington Examiner covered CJV’s release with a scathing piece entitled “Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman savaged over hostility to Israel.”

Bowman told a constituent that he no longer believed the Accords represented “an opportunity to make progress toward justice and healing.” Yet his decision to repudiate them puts the Congressman in the company of organizations that are — despite their rhetoric — far from peaceful.

The groups who called for Congress to drop its support for the peace accords include the Progressive Democrats of America, which makes support for the antisemitic Arab boycott a key element of its platform; the Presbyterian Church USA, which explicitly blames Jews for Arab atrocities committed against them; and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood to develop support for Hamas, an internationally recognized terror organization with a call for antisemitic genocide written into its charter. Most disturbingly from the perspective of CJV, several ostensibly Jewish organizations joined what CJV deemed an antisemitic letter of opposition to peace, including Jewish Voice for Peace Action, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, and IfNotNow.

The Abraham Accords established diplomatic relations between Israel and four Muslim-majority countries, repudiating the Arab League Boycott established in 1945 to oppose growing Jewish life in the Jewish homeland. The Accords brought immediate economic and healthcare benefits to participating countries, while the UAE and Bahrain immediately welcomed Jewish life in their countries, providing official recognition to synagogues and Kosher facilities for Jews from around the world.

“It’s hard to fathom anything more worthwhile than encouraging peace in a troubled region of the world,” observed Rabbi Avrohom Gordimer, Chair of the CJV Rabbinic Circle and Bowman’s fellow New York City resident. “For a leader in Congress to bow to anti-peace groups, which would hold regional harmony hostage to the intransigence of the Palestinian Authority, is to oppose cooperation and to support racist hatred against the Jewish community.”