The low-hanging fruit for column topics of late has been Republican moral turpitude but this week a Colorado Democrat deserves the honor.<\/p>\n
On October 7, Hamas terrorists murdered more than 1,200 men, women, and children in a heinous surprise attack in southern Israel. The terrorists injured thousands more and took hostages whose whereabouts remain unknown. Before the blood could dry, Colorado Rep. Tim Hern\u00e1ndez attended a rally \u201cIn Support of Palestinian resistance in Gaza\u201d on the Colorado Capitol steps.<\/p>\n
Hern\u00e1ndez was appointed by a Democratic Party vacancy committee to fill the House District 4 seat<\/a> in Denver earlier this year. The choice must seem a bit imprudent at this juncture. Perhaps committee members should have viewed Hern\u00e1ndez \u2019s statements about the cultural revolution<\/a> against whiteness and other radical leftist garbage as character-defining.<\/p>\n At the rally, Hern\u00e1ndez also argued with a Jewish man who, passing by on his way to synagogue, stopped to question the lawmaker\u2019s participation in the rally. In the video, which went viral on Twitter (no, I\u2019m not calling it X, ever), the man, who goes by Russell, asked the lawmaker if he \u201ccondemned[ed] the murder of women and children in the streets by Palestinian terrorists?\u201d Hernandez replied, \u201cI condemn any form of colonial violence perpetuated upon any group of people.\u201d<\/p>\n Does he think the slaughter of Israeli civilians is \u201ccolonial violence?\u201d More likely he is trying to draw a moral equivalence between the beheading of children, murder of unarmed civilians, and raping of women by Hamas and the Israeli government\u2019s actions in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Such equivalence is utterly false. One can criticize the Israeli government\u2019s actions towards Palestinians as unjust but one cannot equate such actions with Hamas\u2019s barbarous attack.<\/p>\n Russell then asked Hern\u00e1ndez if liberating Palestine involved murdering women and children. Hern\u00e1ndez further equivocates, \u201cI told you I believe in the liberation of Palestine. I\u2019ve already answered that.\u201d Does that mean yes? Sounds like it. After all, the Palestinian rally flyer stated that \u201cResistance is justified when people are occupied\u201d suggesting butchery and rape are acceptable means of liberation.<\/p>\n After receiving criticism, Hern\u00e1ndez released a statement generally condemning \u201coppression, human suffering, and attacking innocent people\u201d but he did not specifically condemn Hamas\u2019 slaughter of Israelis. He stated that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is complicated. It is, but the morality of murder, rape, torture, and hostage-taking is not some grey area. These were acts of \u201csheer evil\u201d to quote President Joe Biden, utterly inexcusable and they must be denounced in no uncertain terms.<\/p>\n Sadly, Hern\u00e1ndez was not alone in his blame-the-victim approach to the October 7 atrocities. At Harvard University, 31 liberal student groups issued a joint statement saying they \u201chold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.\u201d In New York, the city chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America held a rally similar to the one in Denver. Their chant \u201cFrom the river to the sea, Palestine will be free\u201d refers to the Mediterranean and the Jordan River and the land in between including all of Israel. They\u2019re not talking about creating a single Jewish-Arab state; they\u2019re advocating ethnic cleansing of all Jewish people from the region.<\/p>\n