According to an Axios report, two Congress Democrats who happen to be Jewish found out they were signatories to a bill backing the creation of a Palestinian state and reaffirming the two-state solution as "the only solution that will secure a lasting peace in the region" after it was actually singed. The two, progressive Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and the more moderate Rep. Kathy Manning (D-N.C.) asked Congress to withdraw their names as co-sponsors of the bill.
Congress, for its part, admitted the discrepancy and removed the two from the list. Raskin now plans to work with Congress to "figure out how it happened" and "try to prevent this from happening to anyone else."
Apparently, this wasn't the first time members of Congress were signed to a bill they never supported. "My name was added to this as a co-sponsor without my knowledge, without my consent. I knew nothing about it," Raskin told a congressional hearing.
The bill is supposedly a counter-measure to pro-Israel rulings passed by Congress following the Oct. 7 massacre and ensuing war with Hamas. It states that, "The Palestinian people are inhabitants of the land of Palestine," affirms "Palestine’s right to exist and become a nation State," "recognizes the two-state solution as the only solution that will secure a lasting peace in the region," and "rejects calls for Palestine’s destruction."
It was co-sponsored by progressives Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.), Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), Andre Carson (D-Ind.), Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), and Veronica Escobar (D-Texas).
