A Brooklyn lawmaker will be booted from a City Council committee that oversees immigrant issues after recently coming under fire for claiming “Palestine does not exist.”
Council Speaker Corey Johnson confirmed in a statement Monday that Councilman Kalman Yeger would be removed from the Immigration Committee.
This was after Council leaders quietly met hours earlier and determined Yeger’s remarks weren’t “appropriate,” a source said.
“I found Council Member Yeger’s comments completely unacceptable…,” Johnson said. “They were dehumanizing to Palestinians and divisive, and have no place in New York City.”
Although sources said Yeger’s removal is all but a done deal, it still has to go through the City Council’s Rules, Privileges and Elections committee and then the full Council.
Yeger, who represents Midwood and other neighborhoods with large Jewish populations, made the remarks last week as part of series of tweets accusing Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) of being an anti-Semite.
He doubled down a day later by again denying Palestine’s existence when questioned by reporters.
“There is no state by that name; there is no place by that name,” he said. “That’s a fact. I did not make it up.”
Yeger turned to Twitter again Monday to defend his remarks.
“I respect the Speaker’s right to run the Council as he sees fit,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that political correctness takes precedence over objective fact. Of course, there are Palestinians. However, the fact remains there is no Palestinian state.”
Omar issued a public apology after causing a furor in February by saying the relationship between the US and Israel is “all about the Benjamins.”