Thoughts on My Twitter Exchange with Congressman Ro Khanna

Last night I took California Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna to task for his erroneous claim that Israel had burned down Palestinian villages.

This morning, much to my surprise, he replied to me directly on Twitter and we had a brief but civil exchange which you can view here.

In summary, Khanna emphasized he had corrected his mistake and cited his pro-Israel credentials. I countered that if he was genuinely pro-Israel he would not have deployed such careless and inflammatory language. While I appreciated him in getting touch with me I told him that this juror was still out on him. Khanna replied that was fair. He then asked that I judge him going forward on the entirety of his record. He then made a point of deriding Netanyahu while praising the late Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. I retorted that his energies would be better spent holding the Palestinian Authority to account reminding him they haven't had elections in 15 years.

We didn't change each others' minds, but I do give him credit for reaching out to me. I don't know if Khanna is in the habit of reaching out to people who disagree with him. If it is then more power to him. Either way, I certainly had no expectation that would happen. That certainly would never happen with the likes of AOC, Ilhan Omar or Rashida Tlaib. 

I will say that other responses to our exchange were considerably less civil and predictably anti-Semitic.

With that said, I will keep a close eye on what Khanna says and does regarding Israel going forward. I hope his statement was an aberration and that he can earn my trust.