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If You Want to Criticize, You Should Be Criticizing Hamas
Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) interviewed by Lulu Garcia-Navarro - Q: You've become one of the most pro-Israel Democrats in the Senate. Where does your affinity with the State of Israel come from? Fetterman: "I think it's really about, that's our ally. There's a special relationship....Err on the side of democracy. And that is the only democracy in the middle of that region. And I've had the chance to visit there. And that's the kind of society that has those same kinds of values that we live and what we aspire to, especially, ironically, progressives, especially for women and members of the LGBTQ communities. And that's why, for me, it's an easy choice." "One of the enduring truths through this is that Israel continues to confront the kinds of singular evil that really manifested its way on Oct. 7. And they have the right to destroy Hamas, and now Hizbullah. You know, everybody, experts describe Hizbullah as like the ultimate badass, and Israel demolished them." "The price is terrible. It's awful. That's history. And that's war. And Israel was forced to fight an enemy that are cowardly. They hide in tunnels. They hide in schools and in refugee camps. And they're in those kinds of places and that forces them to reach them. They have to go through these civilians. That's why they're so evil." "The death and destruction and the misery was designed by Hamas. They understood that that's going to happen. They don't care. So we can both agree that the misery and the deaths in Gaza are terrible. And, you know, some people blame Israel. Well, I blame Hamas." "I thought it was really curious that Democrats felt like they needed politically to criticize Israel, but that would be difficult, so they found that, well, we're going to just focus on Netanyahu. And you can think he's a bad leader or a bad person or anything, but that happens to be the democratically [elected] leader of Israel. And he's on our side. That's our ally. And if you had to pick who you want to criticize, you should be criticizing Hamas. You should be calling out Iran, or you should be calling out Hizbullah. Certainly not, you know, our ally. I think it was incredibly unhelpful."