A Democrat running in Michigan for the U.S. House of Representatives this year has expressed support for the BDS movement, in addition to a bill that would condition U.S. military assistance to Israel.
“The people of Palestine have to live in impoverished conditions where their access to food, water and electricity is limited. Innocent people die regularly because of needless bombings. This is not a matter of religion. This is a matter of human rights,” states the campaign website of Solomon Rajput, who is running for the Democratic nomination in the state’s 12th Congressional District, which is currently served by Democratic Rep. Debbie Dingell.
The site continues describing his positions, saying “Solomon supports a two-state solution because he believes that Israel and Palestine should both be able to govern themselves on their own land. Both the Israelis and Palestinians have a right to exist in stable environments, which a two-state solution would provide. Solomon supports all non-violent methods to pressure the Israeli government to respect the rights of Palestinians, including the BDS movement (Boycott, Divest, Sanctions).”
According to his campaign website, Rajput, 27, also supports a bill that would mandate the U.S. government to certify that military funding to Israel not be used for “detention, interrogation, abuse, or ill-treatment of Palestinian children and for other purposes.”
Finally, Rajput stood against the Trump administration’s decision in November to stop considering Israeli settlements a violation of international law and, if elected, he “would advocate for the executive branch to reverse this ruling.”
Rajput, a medical student at the University of Michigan, served as an undergraduate adviser and researcher at Dartmouth College, according to his LinkedIn profile. For a few months in 2011, he taught English to children and teenagers in Ecuador. In 2008, he was a campaign intern for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.
