Rep. André Carson (D., Ind.) spoke at an anti-Israel rally alongside one activist who said he was “happy” about Hamas’s terrorist attack on the Jewish state, one who has claimed that “Hitler never intended to mass-destroy the Jews,” and another who has attended Holocaust denial events with former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Carson, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, appeared Saturday at the “March for Gaza” rally in Washington, D.C. Carson took thinly veiled shots at his fellow Democrats for supporting Israel but ignored Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack.
“It can be frustrating when some of our friends seem to be going on with life as usual, and as though the atrocities in Gaza aren’t even happening,” said Carson, who spoke at a podium with an “End Genocide Now” sign plastered across it.
Speakers before and after Carson excoriated President Joe Biden—whom many dubbed “Genocide Joe”—while others toed the line in support of Hamas and other terrorist groups.
Nihad Awad, the president of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), took the stage 12 minutes after Carson. Awad, who asserted that Biden “serve[s] the American people, not the State of Israel,” made headlines last month after he said he was “happy to see” Hamas fighters invade Israel on Oct. 7. He also claimed Israel “does not have that right to self-defense.”
Anti-Zionist activist Yisroel Dovid Weiss spoke at the Gaza rally via satellite. He has attended Holocaust denial events with Ahmadinejad and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. Weiss gave a gift to the head of the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah at a 2018 event in Beirut.
Yasir Qadhi, an Islamic activist who once claimed that “Hitler never intended to mass-destroy the Jews,” invoked the Holocaust at the Gaza rally. “Are we going to sit by idly as we watch another genocide? Seventy-five years, 75 years ago, we heard the slogan ‘never again.’ We now have the opportunity to stand up again and say, ‘Yes indeed, never again,'” said Qadhi, who has also referred to the Holocaust as a “hoax.”
Carson’s appearance at the event comes as Democratic leaders try to distance themselves from anti-Israel activists. The White House last month denounced Awad’s remarks as anti-Semitic. Other Democrats retracted their past support for CAIR, which the FBI in a 2000s terrorism investigation named a co-conspirator of Hamas front groups.
Carson is no backbencher in Congress. He has served in Democratic leadership roles as deputy whip of the party’s caucus. He is the top Democrat on the subcommittee that oversees the CIA’s human-intelligence-gathering activities.
Other speakers blasted Biden for supporting Israel, which has responded to the Oct. 7 attack with targeted strikes on Hamas strongholds in Gaza.
Taher Herzallah, an official with American Muslims for Palestine, a Hamas-linked group that sponsored the rally, said to Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken that “Gaza will haunt you for the rest of your wretched lives.”
He also appeared to praise both Hamas and the Houthi rebels in Yemen who have waged terrorist attacks on commercial ships in response to the Israel-Hamas war. “Who would have known that people of this small strip of land we call Gaza would break the shackles of occupation?” asked Herzallah, who appeared on stage 40 minutes before Carson. “Who would have known that the mighty people of Yemen would challenge the empires of the world?”
Osama Abuirshaid, the executive director of American Muslims for Palestine, repeatedly told the crowd, “Screw you, Joe Biden.”
“Israel in its current form, as a current structure, will cease to exist,” he added.
Carson’s office and Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee did not respond to requests for comment.
