Progressive Los Angeles City Council member Nithya Raman did more to harm her chances against Mayor Karen Bass by defending her appearance on antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker’s show and saying that she supports the movement to boycott Israel than she did by reiterating her stance that Israel is guilty of “genocide,” according to political science scholar Dan Schnur.
“Raman was already on the record on genocide, but she just did the math,” Schnur, who lectures at Pepperdine University, University of Southern California and University of California, Berkeley, told JNS.
“There are a lot more progressives in Los Angeles than there are Jews, and not every Jew is necessarily a strong supporter of Israel,” he said, but “her lines on BDS and Hasan Piker were more damaging.”
Raman and Bass faced off at a mayoral forum at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, during which they appeared separately on stage, on Wednesday.
Alex Cohen, a journalist, posed questions to each candidate at the event, which the Skirball Center, Jewish Federation Los Angeles, Jewish Family Service LA and the Los Angeles chapters of the Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee co-hosted.
Cohen told Raman that her May appearance on Piker’s show was “deeply hurtful to many voters, considering what Piker has said in the past about Jews and his praise for terrorist organizations.”
Given that Raman told ABC News that she “vehemently” disagrees with some of his statements, why did she go on Piker’s program, Cohen asked.
Raman said that as someone seeking higher office, she has to “go and speak to voters” on various platforms. She added that many of Piker’s viewers are Los Angeles voters, and many young people don’t watch television and don’t get political mailers at home.
“I felt like I responded to the questions that he asked me with honesty about where my platform and my views were,” she said. “He asked me certain questions that I said ‘yes’ to, and there were others where I pushed back against, like questions about the existence of the State of Israel, and I stood my ground on those issues.”
Cohen noted that Raman agreed with Piker that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza and asked how she defines the term and what she would say to Jews, who see it as “highly inflammatory.”
Raman said that she’s “not an expert on these issues,” but experts have said that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute a “genocide.”
“I felt compelled to speak out about issues that we saw—the images that are coming, the targeting of hospitals, the deaths of children,” she said. “I was the first in City Hall to condemn the attacks on Oct. 7. I condemned them without reservation, and I will speak up when there are issues that require condemnation.”
Marc Graboff, an AJC Los Angeles board member, asked Raman in what ways she diverges from the Democratic Socialists of America, including its support for efforts to boycott Israel. Raman said that boycotting the Jewish state is a “legitimate form of peaceful protest.”
“I support people’s right to free protest,” she said. “I will fight for that right even when I don’t agree with protesters or when I agree with protesters.”
Raman also said that she has “disagreed with the DSA on a range of issues” and that the organization has been critical of some of her votes on policing and on housing.
Cohen asked Raman why she considers herself a DSA member if she disagrees with it on various issues.
“DSA is a big tent organization,” she said. She added that she hopes Los Angeles can “build a big tent progressive coalition that can dream of a better city together,” with DSA in the coalition.
Asked if “genocide” is an appropriate term to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza, Bass said that “when I think of foreign affairs, especially conflicts, my focus is on how they impact the city of Los Angeles—and no I don’t.”
“My job is to keep Angelenos safe, and I think that there is a lot of divisiveness that happens, and I don’t want to see that happen at all,” she said.
Bass, who is black and not Jewish, said that she “grew up in the Jewish community” and that parents and grandparents of her friends were Holocaust survivors.
“I saw tattoos at a young age and understood about antisemitism,” Bass said.
She also said that she opposes the movement to boycott Israel.
“Bass is a strong progressive, but her position may be less ideological than generational,” Schnur told JNS. “Older voters tend to be more supportive of Israel than young people, and the same tendency holds for politicians.”
Asked how she would address campus antisemitism while respecting freedom of speech, Bass said that she was “very upset with both universities, our main universities, in how they handled it from the beginning until the end.”
“It was unnecessary that it happened the way it did, and I know I talked to both college presidents throughout the whole incident, but also afterwards, to say that they cannot do this again,” she said. “Yes, we want freedom of speech, but they can be more responsible in how they approach it.”
Bass said that she would seek input from the community on how to address the issue.
Of buffer zones around houses of worship, Bass said that the city studied the matter but stopped when the state legislature considered related legislation.
Now that California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed the bill into law, the city’s Jewish community safety working group is studying how to implement it, Bass said.
“Bass had the right idea with her ‘Israel in Los Angeles’ messaging as a way of standing up against antisemitism, but it didn’t come out well,” Schnur told JNS.
Jared Sclar, a Democratic consultant in San Diego, told JNS that “Bass is trying to come off as a steady hand and more moderate, since Nithya is so extreme.”
“My guess would be that most of the Jewish support is behind Bass,” he said.
