Two anti-Israel activists denied that Hamas raped women or killed babies and called for dismantling the Jewish state during speeches to the national Republican club in Washington, D.C., this month.
The speakers, author Max Blumenthal and Israeli-American activist Miko Peled, were invited to speak on Jan. 16 at the Capitol Hill Club (CHC), a private GOP club whose membership roster includes nearly every Republican in Congress. The event was organized by the Committee for the Republic, whose board includes anti-Israel former Republican officials such as ex-ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman.
The event has privately drawn criticism from many Jewish Republicans, who say the club shouldn’t have allowed its space to be used to host the Israel-bashing speakers.
Blumenthal and Peled are “among the most notorious traffickers of anti-Semitic blood libels posing as Israel criticism,” one Republican who frequents the club told the Washington Free Beacon. The event “runs completely counter to the Republicans’ official plank on Israel, is a betrayal of the GOP, and a political win for the enemies of both Israel and America—precisely why CHC was targeted as a place to host this event,” he added.
The Capitol Hill Club’s general manager, Stan Lawson, told the Free Beacon that the event does “not reflect the views of the great majority of our members.” The event was sponsored by an individual CHC member, John Henry, an investment banker who also cofounded the Committee for the Republic.
“Management was alerted to the speakers of this event just hours ahead of time,” said Lawson. “Obviously, the speakers and their message do not reflect the views of the great majority of our members. We are dealing with the matter internally.”
During the event, the activists claimed that the “Israel lobby” hacked the brains of politicians and gushed that Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack exposed Israel as a “paper tiger.”
Blumenthal, the son of Clinton hatchet man Sidney Blumenthal, dismissed evidence of women being raped by Hamas on Oct. 7 as a “psy-op” invented by Israel to justify its military response.
“There’s no physical evidence,” said Blumenthal. “On October 7, there is no documentation of any rape, no testimony from any rape victim.”
Numerous eye-witnesses have stepped forward with accounts of watching Hamas terrorists rape and sexually abuse female victims before killing them. Medical officials described finding dead female bodies with signs of sexual assault and genital trauma.
Blumenthal also rejected evidence that Jewish children were killed, calling it a “propaganda campaign being waged by Israel.”
“It’s believed by most if not all, Jewish Israelis, that many, many babies were beheaded on October 7,” he said. “No babies were killed on October 7.”
Instead, Blumenthal insisted that many of the 1,200 Israelis murdered on Oct. 7 were “killed by Israel using the same tactics that they’re now using in Gaza because they know nothing other than indiscriminate use of heavy weapons and disproportionate force.”
Blumenthal said Israel lied about the atrocities by Hamas in order to “compel Western support for what it was about to do, which was going to be essentially a convening of an Einsatzgruppen and reenactment society in Gaza.”
The Einsatzgruppen were Nazi death squads sent to eliminate the Jewish people during the Holocaust.
Peled, an Israeli-American activist, argued that Israel’s founding was illegitimate and orchestrated by powerful, rich Jews.
“Back in those days, the early 20th century, white Europeans giving brown people’s countries to their friends, it was no big deal,” said Peled. “[The British made a] promise to Lord Rothschild, who was a Jewish millionaire, that he could have somebody else’s country.”
Peled also appeared to praise the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, saying that “every time [the Palestinians] dare, they succeed. The Israeli military was proven, clearly, to be nothing more than a paper tiger.”
“Every time [Israel is] put to the test, they’re humiliated, and they fail,” he added.
Blumenthal agreed, saying the Oct. 7 attack “exposed [Israel] as a paper tiger; Palestine [was] placed back at the center of history.”
“Israel’s borders were temporarily shrunken for the first time since 1973,” he said.
The speakers also called for dismantling the Jewish state and claimed that the “Israel lobby” hacked the brains of Israel-supporting Sen. John Fetterman (D., Pa.).
Blumenthal said Fetterman was “basically a cyborg. He had a stroke. He needs machines to help him talk. And the Israel lobby has just basically hacked his brain.”
“They took Fetterman early on and made him into this Zionist monster who’s just going further than Likud.”
Peled said the only “solution” to the conflict is to eliminate the state of Israel.
“We have to demand our elected officials that our tax dollars go to bringing down and dismantling the apartheid state and establishing a democratic free Palestine from the river to the sea,” he said.
