A pro-Hamas panel event from September featuring members of Congress, including Reps. Cori Bush (D-MO) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) is once again gaining attention as 2024 comes to an end. A clip from the event, particularly comments from Al Jazeera's Marc Lamont Hill, has been circulating over X. Not only were members of Congress present, but, according to the Algemeiner, the panel event, "Nobody’s Free Until Everybody’s Free: The Struggle for Black & Palestinian Liberation" was part of a conference put on by the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC).
The event was described as one that "attempted to draw parallels between the historical discrimination faced by African Americans with the alleged mistreatment of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank." It also featured state Rep. Ruwa Romman (D-GA), and anti-Israel journalist Mehdi Hasan. The three women on the panel could be seen sporting a keffiyeh, which has become an anti-Israel symbol.
To laughter from the audience, Hasan asked Hill why he didn't mention Hamas in his remarks from moments ago, remarks which Hasan praised as "wonderful."
"I didn't mention Hamas in my remarks because the question was about black-Palestinian solidarity throughout history and Hamas is not that old, 1987, right? So that's why," Hill offered as part of a poor explanation. It got worse from there, though. "Um, I feel like we have this reflective tic in American media politics, where we have to say 'what about Hamas, what about Hamas, what about Hamas? Denounce Hamas,'" he said mockingly, even though it was Hamas terrorists who started the Israel-Hamas conflict with their attack on October 7 of last year.
"And I think it's unnecessary and it's excessive. That doesn't mean that we don't have critiques of Hamas, but let's be very clear: Hamas hasn't surrendered because they're still under brutal occupation," he continued, equating the terrorist group with those in Gaza and using an anti-Israel narrative. "Hamas has never surrendered because Israel has never given the Palestinian people one minute, one second of self-determination, freedom, liberation, even after they left ostensibly in Gaza in 2005, 2006."
"When you talk about Hamas or you talk about October 7, we also have to talk about October 6," Hill said from there, going for what certainly sounded like a justification of the brutal attack that occurred in which 1,200 Israelis--mostly civilians--were murdered. Not even babies and Holocaust survivors were spared. Hamas also engaged in rape, torture, and kidnapping, taking approximately 250 people hostage, including American citizens. Many hostages still remain. To the point about Hamas not surrendering, it's because they are complicating ceasefire deals when it comes to the hostage release.
To applause and murmurs of agreements, Hill went on to say that he made such a point "because history didn't start on October 6, right?" Bush could be seen visibly nodding her head, while Tlaib was clapping. "My moral code is that you don't kidnap innocent people and that you don't kill civilians. That's fine, we can have that conversation," Hill added, though there was a "but" thrown in there.
"I'm not without a critique of Hamas, but as a non-Palestinian, which is why I was a little reluctant to answer the question," Hill offered, as if one needed to be a certain ethnicity to condemn terrorists. "It is not my job to tell people how to liberate themselves," he added, putting out what came off as yet another defense for Hamas and their attack on Israel.
Hill continued further to more applause, adding that "it is not my job to tell people how to get free," as he then complained about a fair question that people should be asked if they don't want to come off as pro-Hamas. "And the question presumes, and it's undergirded by a kind of orientalist, white supremacist idea that Palestinians are these unyielding, barbaric, uncivilized, premodern people who are incapable of negotiation." He then went on to praise Palestinians and claim that "it's just like black folk."
With such lamenting, Hill also made himself and his fellow panelists out to be the victim.
"So the point is, you can--there is room in a political discourse to have a critique of Hamas," Hill continued, though it should be basic common decency to "have a critique of" a terrorist group. "But they are a democratically elected organization that has been systematically undermined, so if we--if we're going to have the conversation about Hamas, don't just talk about them like they're some irrational crazy people against the backdrop of Israeli settler states that sexually abuse people," he emphasized to applause as his final point was to defend Hamas and spew lies and anti-Israel narratives.
With Cori Bush and Rashida Tlaib clapping, listen to Marc Lamont Hill say that critiquing Hamas is a “white supremacist” viewpoint.
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) December 31, 2024
He then says that Hamas was democratically elected and to not talk about them as though they are some “crazy people.” pic.twitter.com/s5b3cCtL52
Beyond their presence and reported remarks, the elected officials could be seen nodding along and clapping throughout.
The write-up from the Algemeiner also included further background about Hill:
Hill, an academic and anchor on Al Jazeera — a media outlet funded by the Qatari government, which hosts several top Hamas leaders — said that he has “paid a price” to publicly advocate against Israel. He stated that there is a “long history” of African Americans siding with the Palestinian cause, noticing parallels with their own experience in the United States. The left-wing pundit stated that radical black activists such as Malcolm X and the Black Panther Party all supported the anti-Zionist movement.
“They try to tell you that [Martin Luther King Jr.] was a Zionist. King wasn’t no Zionist. What King said was that he believed that Israel had a right to exist, but not to exist as an ethno-nationalist apartheid state,” Hill said.
Arguing that anti-Zionist activists are part of a long tradition of “freedom fighters” and “liberators,” Hill implored the US federal government to revoke all economic and diplomatic assistance to Israel, including support at the United Nations Security Council. He also argued that defeating Zionism is a necessary stepping stone on the path to ultimately dismantling capitalism.
“Stop it! Tell the truth! Stand up for freedom!” he said. “Do the work of liberation! Until Palestine is free, until Sudan is free, until Congo is free, until Haiti is free, not one single one of us free! Free Palestine, from the river to the Motherf—king sea!” Hill said, triumphantly pumping a balled fist in the air.
“From the River to the Sea, Palestine shall be free” — a popular slogan among anti-Israel activists — has been widely interpreted as a call for the destruction of the Jewish state, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
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Hill has a long history of peddling anti-Israel narratives and calling for explicit violence against the Jewish state. In 2018, Hill was fired from his position as a CNN contributor for calling for “free Palestine from the river to the sea,” a phrase which according to critics implies a genocide or mass expulsion of Jews from Israel. He has also voiced support for the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement (BDS), an initiative which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as the first step toward its eventual destruction. The pundit additionally praised antisemitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan — a hate preacher who has referred to Jews as “termites” and called Nazi leader Adolph Hitler “a very great man.” In 2019, Hill skewered mainstream media outlets as “Zionist” organizations, a nod to the antisemitic conspiracy theory notion that Jews control the media. The progressive activist also pushed an unsubstantiated claim that Israel is “poisoning” Palestinian drinking water.
The month before the event, Bush had lost her primary to Rep.-elect Wesley Bell (D-MO), with pro-Israel groups working to oust the Squad member. Just as she had been doing throughout the primary campaign, Bush railed against the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), blaming the group for her loss.
"Notably, Bush made no mention of Hamas’s Oct. 7 slaughter of roughly 1,200 people and kidnapping of some 250 hostages in southern Israel which kickstarted the ongoing war in Gaza," the Algemeiner also noted. This is hardly surprising, given that Bush initially posted over X an anti-Israel video in April just as our ally in the Middle East was being attacked by Iran.
Tlaib, however, who was censured in November of last year for doubling down on anti-Israel falsehoods, will be returning for the 119th Congress. She too has justified the use of the pro-genocidal phrase of "from the river to the sea," which was one of the many reasons why she was censured. Not only is the point of sexual abuse tragically ironic when it comes to the mass rapes that Hamas committed, but Tlaib herself was the only member to not vote in favor of a resolution in February condemning sexual violence from Hamas.
She's also spewed plenty of propaganda before, including during a conference in May where she spoke at an event tied to terrorists. The congresswoman was also reprimanded during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's joint address before Congress in July.
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