Co-chair of Democratic Socialists of America defends rallying for Hamas

Luke Tress is The Times of Israel's New York correspondent.

The co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has defended rallying in support of Hamas and disputed Israel’s right to self defense during a recent interview.

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Megan Romer, the United States’ national co-chair of the DSA, told The New Yorker in an interview published Friday that she “probably would have” 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.

“One day after the slaughter of 1,200 people and taking of over 200 hostages, you would have come and rallied behind Hamas?” New Yorker editor David Remnick asked Romer.

“I 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,” she said.

At the October 8, 2023, rallies in New York City, anti-Zionist protesters chanted in support of Hamas killings, mocked and threatened Jewish counter-demonstrators, celebrated the taking of Israeli hostages, and called for the destruction of Israel.

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.

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.

The DSA branch in New York City initially endorsed the rally after the Hamas attack, then walked back its endorsement.

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.

Romer told The New Yorker that any defense or economic support for Israel was a “solid red line” for the DSA, and that the movement sought a “free Palestine with the capital in Jerusalem,” which she described as a “one-state solution.”

Romer was unfamiliar with former US president Bill Clinton’s Camp David Summit, during which Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat walked away from a proposed Palestinian state.

Asked if she would have been “satisfied” with the terms at the Camp David Summit, Romer said, “I don’t know them off the top of my head.”

She also disputed Israel’s right to defend itself, saying, “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.”

The New Yorker also pressed Romer about supporting both “queer-friendly” politics and the anti-LGBTQ Hamas.

“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,” she said.

Romer also defended Hamas in 2024, saying that “no socialist should” condemn the terrorist group.

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

— Megan Romer (@meganromer) May 24, 2024

The Anti-Defamation League said Romer’s rhetoric “puts every Jewish American at risk” due to her justification of violence against the Jewish state.

“The 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,” the Anti-Defamation League said in a statement.

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