The co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has defended rallying in support of Hamas and disputed Israel\u2019s right to self defense during a recent interview.<\/p>\n
Megan Romer, the United States\u2019 national co-chair of the DSA, told The New Yorker in an interview<\/a> published Friday that she \u201cprobably would have\u201d joined an anti-Israel rally in New York City the day after the October 7, 2023, Hamas invasion of Israel, had she lived in the city.<\/p>\n \u201cOne day after the slaughter of 1,200 people and taking of over 200 hostages, you would have come and rallied behind Hamas?\u201d New Yorker editor David Remnick asked Romer.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that October 7th was largely inevitable. If you put people in an open-air concentration camp and you deprive them of rights, of dignity, of food, of the ability to live in safety, you have to expect that they are going to not take that for that long,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n At the October 8, 2023, rallies in New York City, anti-Zionist protesters chanted in support of Hamas killings<\/a>, mocked and threatened Jewish counter-demonstrators, celebrated the taking of Israeli hostages, and called for the destruction of Israel.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tGet The Times of Israel’s Daily Edition<\/span> Romer is one of two co-chairs of the national DSA, making her a central figure in the ascendant far-left movement, which has made anti-Zionist activism central to its politics.<\/p>\n The DSA is the home base of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and candidates from the movement have won a string of Congressional primaries in recent months.<\/p>\n The DSA branch in New York City initially endorsed the rally<\/a> after the Hamas attack, then walked back its endorsement.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The DSA candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier, who won her congressional primary in New York City in June, attended the rally. Chevalier refused to condemn Hamas or the October 7 attack during her campaign.<\/p>\n Romer told The New Yorker that any defense or economic support for Israel was a \u201csolid red line\u201d for the DSA, and that the movement sought a \u201cfree Palestine with the capital in Jerusalem,\u201d which she described as a \u201cone-state solution.\u201d<\/p>\n Romer was unfamiliar with former US president Bill Clinton\u2019s Camp David Summit, during which Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat walked away from a proposed Palestinian state.<\/p>\n Asked if she would have been \u201csatisfied\u201d with the terms at the Camp David Summit, Romer said, \u201cI don\u2019t know them off the top of my head.\u201d<\/p>\n She also disputed Israel\u2019s right to defend itself, saying, \u201cPeople, humans, peoples have the right to life in safety. But if that safety means doing genocide to somebody else, then no, that\u2019s not defensible.\u201d<\/p>\n The New Yorker also pressed Romer about supporting both \u201cqueer-friendly\u201d politics and the anti-LGBTQ<\/a> Hamas.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI would not call Hamas queer-friendly. I would not say that you can get a lot of social rights when you\u2019re under siege,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Romer also defended Hamas in 2024, saying that \u201cno socialist should\u201d condemn the terrorist group.<\/p>\n Read on to learn why we do not, in fact, condemn Hamas and why no socialist should (with a bonus inside: an extremely tidy and easy-to-grasp explanation of dialectical materialism, if you’re still struggling with that one) https:\/\/t.co\/ylWmeaepbg<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Megan Romer (@meganromer) May 24, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The Anti-Defamation League said Romer\u2019s rhetoric \u201cputs every Jewish American at risk\u201d due to her justification of violence against the Jewish state.\n<\/p>\n \u201cThe DSA co-chair does not and will not condemn a US-designated foreign terrorist organization responsible for the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and whose charter calls for the destruction of the state of Israel,\u201d the Anti-Defamation League said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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