Republican governor candidate Darren Bailey has created more controversy with Illinois’ Jewish community after a weekend visit to a Palestinian group where he spoke in front of a map that relabeled Israel as Palestine and said he would consider seeking repeal of a state law banning public pension fund investments in firms that boycott the Jewish state.
Bailey on Saturday spoke to the Palestinian American Club of Bridgeview, where a map was displayed behind him that depicted the Israel region as Palestine and labeled Jerusalem as its capital. Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.
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Speaking with a Palestinian TV station at the event, Bailey also questioned the constitutionality of legislation and laws aimed at blocking the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel, known as BDS, the Jewish publication The Algemeiner reported.
“I’ll always stand on the constitution,” Bailey said, according to the publication, “and it sounds like some of those values are being stepped on right now,” referring to Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
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“And that makes sense. That’s what’s taking place in every aspect of government with this governor of ours. He doesn’t follow the law, he doesn’t follow the constitution. So the constitution will always be front and center. The Muslim community, the Arab community will always have a seat with me as we learn together, work together, and live together.”
But it was under Pritzker’s predecessor, one-term Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, that a law was enacted in 2015 barring the state’s employee public pension funds from investing in companies that boycott Israel. The law was passed without a dissenting vote in the legislature three years before Bailey was elected to the General Assembly.
Asked by reporters on Tuesday about his appearance before the group, Bailey said, “I strongly support Israel. I always have and I always will. But I will listen to everyone who wants to come to the table and talk.”
When asked if he would seek to repeal the anti-BDS law, Bailey told reporters, “That was a conversation that I had had with them earlier, and they told me that it was unconstitutional. I said if it is, we’ll take a look at that.”
It is not the first time Bailey, a state senator and wealthy farmer from downstate Xenia, has created controversy within the Jewish community as he challenges Pritzker, who is Jewish.
Bailey has said he saw no need to apologize for a 2017 Facebook video in which he said lives lost in the World War II Nazi Holocaust paled in comparison to lives lost from abortion. He said unnamed Jewish leaders told him, “I’m right.”
State Rep. Bob Morgan, a Democrat from Deerfield, said Bailey has demonstrated “a pattern” of extremism.
“Darren Bailey clearly has an issue not just with the Jewish community, but with extremism,” said Morgan, who chairs the Jewish Caucus in the Illinois House. “This is not a Republican view to bash Israel. It’s an extremist view to bash Israel. And it just becomes a recurrent theme.”
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Also at the news conference Tuesday, held in the West Loop, Bailey once again referred to Chicago as a “hellhole” over its crime problems before incorrectly saying that “more people have been murdered in Chicago this year than New York City and Los Angeles combined.”
According to Chicago police statistics through Sunday, the department reported 479 homicides, while the Cook County medical examiner’s office has tallied 500 homicides, which includes several self-defense killings that CPD statistics do not include. New York Police Department statistics show 299 people were slain in New York City through Sunday, while the Los Angeles Police Department through Sept. 3 recorded 270 slayings, for a combined total of at least 569 homicides in those two cities.
Despite his latest use of the “hellhole” label, his campaign confirmed that he’s renting an apartment in Chicago, though they did not immediately say where.
“I want to immerse myself in the culture. You can’t deny there’s problems here,” Bailey told reporters.
“This whole entire journey I have immersed myself in the culture of Illinois that I knew nothing about because I know that I must do that if we’re going to lead this state and make it the great state, and the great city, that it deserves to be.”
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jgorner@chicagotribune.com
