Outrage as Speakers Defend Hamas During Oakland City Council Meeting

There was outrage on social media after a number of speakers defended Hamas during an Oakland city council meeting which voted for an “immediate ceasefire” between Israel and the Palestinian group on Monday. Some falsely suggested either the October 7 massacre didn’t happen or that the Israeli military was heavily involved in the mass killing of Jews.

The council voted 8-0 to demand “an immediate ceasefire; release of all hostages; the unrestricted entry of humanitarian assistance into Gaza; the restoration of food, water, electricity, and medical supplies to Gaza; the respect for international law; and calls for a resolution that protects the security of all innocent civilians.”

However, an amendment proposed by council member Dan Kalb explicitly condemning the killings and the taking of hostages by Hamas was voted down by six votes to two.

On October 7, thousands of militant gunmen launched a surprise assault on southern Israel, leaving 1,200 dead and taking another 240 hostages back to Gaza. In response, Israel launched an air and ground campaign which has left more than 12,700 Palestinians dead, The Associated Press reported, citing the Hamas-run Health Ministry.

More than 500 members of the public signed up to speak at Monday’s council meeting in Oakland, some of whom expressed sympathy for Hamas, which is listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S., E.U. and U.K.

One woman said: “Calling Hamas a terrorist organization is ridiculous, racist and plays into genocidal propaganda that is flooding our media and that we should be doing everything possible to combat.”

Another added: “I support the right of Palestinians to resist occupation, including through Hamas, the armed wing of the unified Palestinian resistance.”

A third woman stated: “Hamas is not a terrorist organization just because the U.S. and Israel deems it so. Hamas is a resistance organization that is fighting for the liberation of Palestinian people in their land.”

Others spread discredited conspiracy theories about the October 7 massacre with one woman commenting: “The notion that this was a massacre of Jews is a fabricated narrative. Many of those killed on October 7, including children, were killed by the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces).”

A second commented: “There have not been beheadings of babies and rapings. Israel murdered their own people on October 7.”

A paper published by the Physicians for Human Rights Israel concluded the Hamas assault on October 7 included “widespread sexual and gender-based crimes,” with Israeli women and girls being subject to attacks, including rapes, at “the Nova music festival, private homes in the Gaza Envelope, and an Israeli military base.”

A newly released Israeli hostage in the southern Gaza Strip on November 28, 2023. On Monday, Hamas was defended as a “resistance movement” by one speaker at an Oakland council meeting.
AFP/GETTY

While it is possible that a small number of the Israelis who died on January 6 may have been killed by crossfire between Hamas and the Israeli military, there is no evidence this happened on any significant scale, and Hamas gunman filmed themselves shooting a large number of civilians.

A compilation of some of the remarks made during the Oakland council meeting was shared on X, formerly Twitter, by Yashar Ali, sparking anger from other social media users.

MSNBC contributor Charlie Sykes said: “Moral Depravity on parade…. This is the pro-Hamas, pro-murder wing of [t]he Left.”

James Palmer, deputy editor of the influential Foreign Policy magazine, wrote: “We have to face that something has gone very, very wrong with part of American leftism.”

A similar sentiment was expressed by The Dispatch editor-in-chief Jonah Goldberg, who wrote: “If there was a city council meeting at which right-wingers said anything remotely as evil, stupid, wrong, and indefensible as this, every single major media outlet would run it constantly and every Republican politician would be asked to condemn it.

“Even if you think I’m wrong, most conservatives agree will agree with me in whole or in part. Refusal to condemn this sort of garbage is a poison pill for the center left.”

Rebeccah Heinrichs, who works for the Hudson Institute think tank, commented: “The Left (and therefore the U.S.) has a Hamas-support problem.”

On Tuesday Hamas released a fifth batch of Israeli hostages as part of a deal which is also seeing an extended ceasefire, the release of Palestinian women and children from Israeli prisons and increased humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Originally, Hamas agreed to free 50 women and children it had kidnapped in exchange for 150 Palestinian prisoners, but after further intervention from Qatar, Egypt and the U.S. this deal was extended. Israel has said it will prolong the ceasefire for one day for each 10 hostages who are freed by Hamas.