CUNY professor Marc Lamont Hill defended Hamas during a Congressional Black Caucus panel discussion with Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) on Thursday, calling the terrorist group a "democratically elected organization that has been systematically undermined."
"As a non-Palestinian, it is not my job to tell people how to liberate themselves. It is not my job to tell people how to be free," Hill said.
"When we have the conversation of Hamas, don’t just talk about them like they’re some irrational, crazy people," he said. "[View Hamas] against the backdrop of Israeli settler states that sexually abuse people, that steal land, that kill people, that never hold on to a treaty."
Hill added that there is "room in a political discourse to have a critique of Hamas, but they are a democratically elected organization that has been systematically undermined."
Hill—who was fired as a CNN contributor in 2018 after calling for a global boycott of Israel and using the anti-Israel elimination chant "from the river to the sea"—is now a professor at CUNY and hosts the show UpFront on Al Jazeera.
Hill was speaking at the panel discussion on "The Struggle for Black and Palestinian Liberation," which featured Tlaib, outgoing Rep. Cori Bush (D., Mo.), Palestinian Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman, and former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan.
Bush nodded during Hill’s comments while Tlaib sat silently. Hasan was the only panelist to lightly challenge Hill, saying that Hamas shouldn’t be described as "democratically elected" since Gaza hasn’t held an election in nearly two decades.
The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation hosted the event as part of its annual legislative conference. During the discussion, the panelists griped about how their anti-Israel views had damaged them professionally.
Bush—who recently blamed the pro-Israel group AIPAC for her reelection loss—accused Israel of "ethnic cleansing" and "extermination of the people of Gaza." Hasan assured Bush that "history will remember that you sacrificed your career for the biggest moral cause."
When an audience member asked the panel why none of them had mentioned Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, Hill said it was not his place to criticize the terrorist group.
"I feel like we have this reflexive tic in American media and politics where we have to say, ‘But Hamas, what about Hamas? Denounce Hamas.’ And I think that it’s unnecessary and it’s excessive," said Hill.
"Let’s be very clear, Hamas hasn’t surrendered because they’re still under brutal occupation. Hamas hasn’t surrendered because Israel has never given the Palestinian people one minute, one second, of self-determination, freedom, and liberation," he said.
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