New York Rep. Bowman accused of making false statements regarding Israeli checkpoints

Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., is being slammed for comments he made claiming to have been stopped at Israeli checkpoints because he isn’t Jewish.

In an MSNBC interview, Bowman said, “So we’ve been using a lot of rhetoric about a two-state solution for decades, and when I went there I saw that we are nowhere near a two-state-solution. Myself, as a sitting member of Congress, could not walk through certain checkpoints in the West Bank because I wasn’t Jewish.”

The Daily Wire reports that the statement received a number of comments on X, formerly Twitter, accusing Bowman of lying.

New York State Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, a Democrat, claimed she had checked with two people on the same trip who told her the incident never happened, in a post that was apparently later deleted.

Responding to Paulin, J Street president Jeremy Ben Ami defended Bowman’s claims, saying he led the trip with Bowman and that there were checkpoints in Hebron where security separates who can walk where according to religion.

In the course of the debate, podcast host Noam Blum cited a report from Honest Reporting that disputes the claims of “Jews-only roads” in the disputed territories.

In September, Bowman pulled a fire alarm in the U.S. Capitol, interrupting official proceedings. He has been accused of doing it intentionally to delay a vote on government spending.

Bowman pleaded guilty last month to a misdemeanor count of falsely pulling a fire alarm. He agreed to pay a $1,000 fine, serve three months probation, and write an apology for the U.S. Capitol Police.