Hamas’s October 7 attack on an Israeli music festival occurred one year ago today, and Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Wyckoff) is proposing a new resolution that commemorates the anniversary of the attack, reaffirms Israel’s right to exist, calls on Hamas to release its remaining hostages, and denounces antisemitism.
“We can never forget the horrific violence committed by Hamas terrorists on this day a year ago,” Gottheimer said on a press call this morning. “We have four critical goals still: bring the hostages home, crush the Hamas terrorists responsible for October 7th, deliver humanitarian aid to the innocent Palestinians being used as human shields by Hamas, and ensure that the 80,000 residents of northern Israel can return home and live without fear of attacks from Hezbollah.”
Gottheimer was already one of the country’s most vociferously pro-Israel Democrats even before Hamas’s attack, and his activism has only grown in prominence since then. One of the American hostages that Hamas continues to hold to this day, Tenafly native Edan Alexander, is a resident of Gottheimer’s congressional district.
The resolution that Gottheimer proposed today is co-led by three of Gottheimer’s colleagues, two Republicans and one fellow Democrat, and has a bipartisan set of 132 co-sponsors, including seven New Jerseyans: Reps. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair), Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City), Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield), Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch), Andy Kim (D-Moorestown), Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis), and Donald Norcross (D-Camden). It also has the support of a number of top Jewish advocacy groups, including the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee.
Some of the New Jersey members who haven’t signed onto the resolution are also making sure to commemorate the October 7 anniversary today in other ways. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing), a heavy critic of Israel’s current government and the only no vote from New Jersey on a foreign aid package for Israel earlier this year, said in a statement that the 2023 attack made her “sick to my stomach” and that she remains committed to supporting her Jewish constituents.
“In the year since that heinous attack, I’ve worked with my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, to secure our places of worship through expansion of the nonprofit security grant program, and to fight the rise in antisemitism,” Watson Coleman said. “I join my constituents in prayer for a peaceful resolution to the conflict in the region, one that returns all the remaining hostages and guarantees safety, security, and self determination for Israelis and Palestinians alike.”