|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Megan Romer, national co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), said she “probably would have” joined a New York City anti-Israel rally held the day after the October 7th attacks in 2023.
New Yorker editor David Remnick asked Romer directly whether “one day after the slaughter of 1,200 people and taking of over 200 hostages” she “would have come and rallied behind Hamas.”
In her response, Romer described the massacre “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,” she asserted.
Protesters at rally in New York City on October 8, 2023, chanted support for the actions of Hamas, mocked and threatened Jewish counter-demonstrators, and called for Israel’s destruction.
Romer also disputed Israel’s right to self-defense while invoking the allegation that Israel perpetrated a genocide in Gaza. “People, humans, peoples have the right to life in safety. But if that safety means doing genocide to somebody else, then no, that’s not defensible,” she said.
Pressed on the contradiction between the DSA’s ‘”queer-friendly” ideology and Hamas’s treatment of LGBTQ people, Romer responded, “I would not call Hamas queer-friendly. I would not say that you can get a lot of social rights when you’re under siege.”
Romer previously defended Hamas in 2024, writing on social media that “no socialist should” condemn the group.
Take Action
CAM has launched Report It, a secure app to report antisemitic incidents anonymously and in real time. Don’t stay silent. Download it today on the Apple App Store or Google Play. See it. Report it. Stop it.
