"We need more dead cops, just as we need more dead Jews, if we are to make the world a better place."
Washington, October 13 - Just weeks after constituting the tiny congressional minority that opposed funding for Israel's civilian missile defense system, a group of vocal, ultra-progressive Democrats in the House of Representatives cited parallel reasoning in a failed bid to defeat legislation aimed at providing American law enforcement personnel with body armor.
Legislators from New York, Michigan, Massachusetts, Missouri, and Minnesota supplied the sole "nay" votes on a bill to help police departments across the nation combat a spike in violent crime, with measures that include allocations for bulletproof vests and other protective gear. Invoking the same rationale as when they opposed funding three weeks ago for the Iron Dome - with interceptors manufactured by the American company Raytheon - "the Squad" railed against what they called the imbalance of power between police forces and violent criminals.
"We cannot allow police violence to go unpunished," charged Ilhan Omar (D-MN). "My colleagues and I already went through this last month. Providing funding to shield Israel from rocket attacks deprives Palestinians of effective resistance, and thus endorses continued Israeli brutality. I'm not saying Israeli civilian lives aren't valuable, and I'm not saying police lives don't matter. I'm just saying they don't matter enough to matter."
"With rampant police brutality disproportionately affecting minority groups, this bill sends exactly the wrong message," declared Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who voted "No" this time, in contrast to her "Present" vote on the Iron Dome bill. "We need more dead cops, just as we need more dead Jews, if we are to make the world a better place."
"It's all about fairness," added Cori Bush (D-MO). "We can't have the people protecting citizens wearing body armor while the people from whom they're protecting the citizens have none, or have to rely on funding from, say, Russia, China, or Qatar. That would be like saying Israel has a right to self-defense while the people attacking Israel don't have the right to target random Israelis to show their displeasure with Israeli policies. I mean, can we be serious for a moment?"
Squad members dismissed talk of possible legislation to promote a Palestinian version of Iron Dome, namely refraining from launching attacks on Israel, which has proven 100% effective in preventing Israeli airstrikes on Gaza - as compared with the actual Iron Dome system's effectiveness of intercepting only about 90% of missiles aimed at populated areas. "That solution is unacceptable because it doesn't assign Palestinians complete victim status, and assigns them at least some responsibility for constructive solutions," explained Jamaal Bowman (D-NY). "What kind of progressive policy would that be?"