Eight Democrats seeking to replace former Senate nominee Graham Platner participated in two televised debates on Thursday, with some accusing Israel of genocide.
During the first hour of the debate, Jordan Wood, a former congressional chief of staff to Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.), said his views on Israel shifted during the campaign after learning from Platner to “draw those moral lines.”
“I’ve been very involved in human rights work. I’ve been protesting the need for Palestinian statehood, a two-state solution. I care deeply about the people in Gaza,” Wood said.
He noted that Platner got into the race already describing Israel’s war against Hamas as “genocide.”
“Voters are looking at you to see what is going on in Gaza, the genocide that Israel is committing and the need to speak to that,” Wood said. “It’s going to be difficult, but it is one thing that I took from Graham that I embrace that position now.”
Shannon Bellows, secretary of state in Maine, said that Democrats should equally recognize “the harm of Oct. 7" while also recognizing that “what Netanyahu is doing in Gaza is genocide.
“We can hold both of those ideas and speak the truth,” she said.
Nirav Shah, former director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, said Congress should immediately cut U.S. aid to Israel. “Right now, there’s an amendment before Congress that would cut $3.3 billion in funding that would go in service, or that is now funding the genocide that’s occurring in Gaza,” he said. “Right off the top, that’s $3 billion that could be spent on food for hungry kids.”
In the debate’s second hour, Ashley Webb argued that Washington should stop military assistance to Israel altogether, comparing U.S. involvement in Israel and in the war with Iran to dealing with “wasps and hornets.
“I don’t go and provoke them,” Webb said. “Like attacking Iran, we provoked them. Personally, I don’t think we should have done that. I think we should have left them alone. They weren’t doing anything to us.
“As far as I know, there wasn’t any threats they were making toward us in the claim that they were making nuclear weapons,” Webb said. “I don’t think they found any evidence of that.”
Webb also said that “as far as the Gaza Strip goes, we’re funding that war too, I believe. I believe we’re giving Israel money to buy the weapons that they’re using. I don’t think we should be doing that, because we’re provoking them, as well. I think we should just pull out of that altogether.”
The state’s Democratic Party must select a candidate by July 27.
