Blumenthal in January speech called evidence of Hamas rape on Oct. 7 a ‘psy-op’
A national Democratic club is set to host a speech by anti-Israel conspiracy theorist Max Blumenthal, two months after he defended Hamas during an address to the national Republican club.
Blumenthal, the son of Clinton hatchet man Sidney Blumenthal, will speak about the “current crises in Gaza and Ukraine” at the Women’s National Democratic Club in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, Jewish Insider reported. An invitation for the event described Blumenthal as an “award-winning investigative journalist” who will “use historical and policy analysis to shed light on the nature of these crises.”
The event comes on the heels of a similar speech Blumenthal gave to the Capitol Hill Club, the national Republican club in D.C., during which he 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.”
The Democratic club event comes days after a United Nations investigative task force found “reasonable grounds to believe” that Hamas engaged in sexual violence during its Oct. 7 attacks, “including rape and gang rape, in at least three locations.”
The Women’s National Democratic Club’s membership services coordinator, Patricia Fitzgerald, told the Washington Free Beacon that Blumenthal’s event is going ahead despite the controversy, but it will be closed to the press. She said events are scheduled by the Women’s National Democratic Club’s programming committee.
Ann Lewis, a former Clinton White House aide and co-chair of Democratic Majority for Israel, slammed the Democratic club’s decision to host Blumenthal this week.
“The club claims to be proud that Eleanor Roosevelt was once a member. Eleanor, who was a strong supporter of the state of Israel, would be ashamed of the WNDC today,” Lewis told Jewish Insider.
Blumenthal has a long history of bashing Israel and courting anti-American dictators. He often compares the Jewish state to Nazi Germany, and has defended Hamas terrorism.
Blumenthal’s January speech drew outrage from pro-Israel Republicans and was condemned by the Capitol Hill Club’s general manager, Stan Lawson, who told the Free Beacon that the event does “not reflect the views of the great majority of our members.”
In his speech to the Republican club, Blumenthal claimed the “Israel lobby” had hacked the brain of Israel-supporting Democratic senator John Fetterman (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.”
He also rejected evidence that Jewish children were killed by Hamas on Oct. 7, 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.”
Blumenthal said Israel lied about the atrocities committed 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.
Blumenthal’s speech to the Capitol Hill Club was organized by the Committee for the Republic, a group of isolationist former Republican officials. It was sponsored by the Committee for the Republic’s cofounder John Henry, an investment banker who is a member of the Capitol Hill Club. The Capitol Hill Club said it wasn’t informed of Blumenthal’s controversial background until a few hours before the event.
