Rep. Ritchie Torres said Monday that Hamas feels “emboldened” by anti-Israel protests and the “demonization” of the Jewish state after the terror group rejected the latest ceasefire proposal.
“The hyperbolic and hysterical demonization of Israel – from our fair-weather friends – gives Hamas the courage to continue rejecting ceasefires and keeping hostages captive,” Torres wrote on X.
Torres commented after reports emerged that senior Hamas officials had rejected the latest offer of peacekeeping efforts.
“We reject the latest Israeli proposals of which the Egyptian side informed us. The politburo met today and made this decision,” Ali Baraka, Hamas’s foreign relations official, told Reuters.
Another Hamas official, who was not identified, told the publication that “there is no change in the position of the occupier (Israel) and therefore, there is nothing back in the Cairo talks” and that “there is no progress yet”.
Torres’ online remark comes as no surprise after the Bronx Democrat left the Congressional Progressive Caucus over his stance on the war between Israel and Hamas.
The full House voted to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), vice chair of the Progressive Caucus, in November for the vitriol she spread about Israel.
While another vice president, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) called Israel a “racist state” and later apologized.
Torres, meanwhile, clearly supported the Jewish state following Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which sparked the ongoing war.
In January, Torres sent a scathing letter to Goldman Sachs Philanthropic Fund President Karen Dye after learning that the charity was acting as a conduit directing “millions” to the People’s Forum, an anti-Israel group. with ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
Hamas “embraces the kind of genocidal ideology that the Popular Forum was caught promoting as ‘the final blow,’ which is strikingly similar to Nazi rhetoric about the ‘final solution,'” he said. writing.
Torres also spoke out against the “anti-Israel propaganda” making its way into New York City public school classrooms: “The DOE should subject educational content to greater scrutiny. external entities such as the Qatar International Foundation, whose program promotes the image of the Middle East. in the East, where Israel was nowhere to be found,” he wrote to Chancellor David Banks.
The Bronx congressman’s outspokenness once led anti-Israel vandals to leave a “bloody” doll outside his district office on Christmas Day.
Hamas captured 253 people during its attack in southern Israel.
As of late March, 129 October 7 hostages remained in Gaza, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing Israeli officials.
Among them, at least 34 and up to 50 are believed to have died in captivity.
New York Post
