Notorious anti-Israel Squad member Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) told The New York Times she doesn’t know if Hamas qualifies as a terrorist organization.
Then Bush tried to walk it back:
Ms. Bush said that she was reluctant to classify Hamas as a terrorist group given how little she knows about it.“Would they qualify to me as a terrorist organization? Yes. But do I know that? Absolutely not,” Ms. Bush said. “I have no communication with them. All I know is that we were considered terrorists, we were considered Black identity extremists and all we were doing was trying to get peace. I’m not trying to compare us, but that taught me to be careful about labeling if I don’t know.”Later, a spokeswoman for Ms. Bush sought to walk back her comments. “The congresswoman knows Hamas is a terrorist organization,” the spokeswoman, Marina Chafa, said. The issue, she added, was that the term had been “weaponized by the far right consistently to justify violence and in this instance, the collective punishment of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.”
The Missouri primary takes place tomorrow.
The polls have consistently shown Bush behind Wesley Bell, her primary opponent.
The latest poll shows Bell at 48% to Bush at 42%. Only 8% remain undecided.
AIPAC has come out hard against Bush due to her vile anti-Israel rhetoric, while others concentrate on her votes against Democrat initiatives:
Marshall Wittmann, a spokesman for AIPAC, called Ms. Bush a lawmaker “aligned with the anti-Israel extremist fringe,” noting she was one of just 10 members of Congress to vote against a resolution expressing solidarity with and pledging U.S. support for Israel and condemning Hamas’s actions days after the group attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing roughly 1,200 and taking hundreds more hostage.“Democratic voters are sending the message that it is entirely consistent with progressive values to support Israel as it battles Iranian terrorist proxies,” Mr. Wittman added.Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster and the president of Democratic Majority for Israel, said Ms. Bush had been a target for years because of her stance on the country, but votes against popular Democratic initiatives made her more vulnerable this cycle.“We’re taking advantage of that,” he said. And even if the Israel-Hamas war is not a central concern in St. Louis, Mr. Mellman said progressives like Ms. Bush “have chosen to make this issue central to them.”“That’s a choice that they made,” he said. “It’s core to who they are.”
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