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Former President Bill Clinton has sparked outrage for his comments at a Michigan rally for Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday, in which he suggested that Israel is justified in carrying out its genocidal slaughter in Gaza and echoed the eliminationist logic of some of Israel’s most extremist politicians.
In his remarks, Clinton suggested that the Hamas-led attack on October 7, in which roughly 700 Israeli civilians were killed, justifies Israel’s subsequent genocide in Gaza — where Israel has killed at least 43,000 Palestinians over the past year, though some estimates range as high as 330,000.
“The people who criticize it are essentially saying, ‘Yeah, but look how many people you’d killed in retaliation. How many is enough for you to punish them for the terrible things they did?’” said Clinton, after saying that he recognizes the sensitivity of the issue for Arab and Muslim communities. “Well that all sounds nice until you realize — what would you do if it was your family and you hadn’t done anything but support a homeland for the Palestinians and one day they come for you?”
“Well, you’ll have to forgive me, I’m not keeping score that way,” he went on. “They’ll force you to kill civilians if you want to defend yourself.”
Clinton’s comments echo the false and dangerous Israeli talking point that the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians starved, wounded and killed by Israel were all complicit in October 7.
His remarks also invoked the line of thinking, often promoted by Israeli politicians, that Israelis want to live in peace, while Palestinians only want violence — a dehumanizing, racist lie easily disproved by Israeli settlers’ violent pogroms against Palestinian villages or Israel’s indiscriminate extermination campaign in Gaza. Clinton further stoked hatred by suggesting, without evidence, that Hezbollah and Hamas are proof that Muslims are banding together to “run every Jew out of Israel.”
Neither Israeli leaders nor settlers have shown interest in a “homeland” for Palestinians; for instance, just in recent months, Israeli leaders have been a strong presence at rallies where the stated goal is to resettle and annex the entire Gaza Strip.
Clinton went on to claim that Hamas wants to “make Israel uninhabitable” — an ironic statement considering that Israeli forces have spent the last year razing homes and infrastructure in Gaza, making it completely uninhabitable. Then, in what some advocates for Palestinian rights flagged as the most disturbing part of Clinton’s speech, Clinton parroted lines from some of Israel’s most extremist factions who believe that they have a biblical right to Palestinian land.
“Well I got news for them: [Israelis] were there first before their faith existed, they were there. In the time of King David and the southernmost tribes had Judea and Samaria,” he said, referring to territories in the occupied West Bank.
Pro-Palestinian advocates pointed out that Clinton’s comments were especially heinous because they were made in Michigan — which has the highest concentration of Arab Americans in the U.S., and which Harris is at major risk of losing due to the U.S.’s sponsorship of Israel’s genocide.
The mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, home to the largest Arab American community in the U.S., condemned Democrats for platforming such speech in Michigan — especially from Clinton, whose presidency paved the way for Israeli subjugation of Palestinians and further seizure of Palestinian land.
“Rumor has it the Dems want to send Bill Clinton to Dearborn to rally the Arab vote this weekend. Do us a favor — stop sending surrogates who have no respect or regard for this community. You’re only inflicting more damage,” said Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud.
“Putting aside his blatantly ahistorical propaganda, we’re expected to believe this guy was an ‘honest peace broker’ between the Israelis and Palestinians. Like anything even remotely fair can result from this level of blind bias. And this is how they expect to win us over,” said writer Tariq Kenney-Shawa. “Clinton sees Israelis as Americans and Palestinians as subhumans and this view is not uncommon to those his age.”
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