{"id":302072,"date":"2026-02-21T01:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T01:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/302072\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T01:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T01:57:09","slug":"illinois-senate-candidate-says-israel-committed-genocide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/302072\/","title":{"rendered":"Illinois Senate candidate says Israel committed ‘genocide’"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Illinois congresswoman who is running for US Senate said during a debate Thursday night that she believed Israel committed a genocide<\/a> in Gaza, in the latest sign of a sea change in Democratic sentiment about Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt may not have started off being like that, but I believe that is what it turned into,\u201d said Rep. Robin Kelly, who is running to replace the retiring Sen. Dick Durbin.<\/p>\n

Following the debate, Kelly took to X to hammer the point that neither Lieutenant Gov. Juliana Stratton nor Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi was willing to match her accusation.<\/p>\n

\"USUS Representative Robin Kelly (D-IL), with Representative Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) and fellow House Democrats, announce their effort to file articles of impeachment against Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC January 14, 2026. (credit: REUTERS\/JONATHAN ERNST)<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery candidate on stage tonight had the opportunity to condemn genocide in Gaza,\u201d she wrote. \u201cI\u2019m the only one who did.\u201d<\/p>\n

The debate came a month after Scott Wiener<\/a>, the Jewish politician running to replace Rep. Nancy Pelosi in California, drew fire after initially declining to answer a debate question about whether Israel committed genocide in Gaza, then said he had decided it had.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kelly’s shifting opinion on Israel<\/p>\n

It also came just a year after Kelly received a donation from AIPAC<\/a>, the pro-Israel lobby – then adopted more critical stances on Israel since declaring her Senate candidacy last May.<\/p>\n

The three candidates\u2019 responses to the question about Gaza underscored just how present Israel remains in electoral politics months after a US-brokered ceasefire sent the two-year-old Israel-Hamas war into a new era. During the war, Democratic voters\u2019 approval of Israel plummeted to the single digits, according to some polls, and an array of politicians who had never before been vocal critics of Israel adopted harshly critical stances.<\/p>\n

Kelly has traveled to Israel multiple times on congressional delegations and sought to curry support within the Chicago Jewish community in the past. Now, as she carves out a position among the three frontrunners in the Senate race as the one most critical of Israel, her success in the primary could be a measure of how heavily Democratic voters are weighing the issue.<\/p>\n

None of the candidates offered a straightforward pro-Israel view on the debate floor. Asked whether she would support Rep. Rashida Tlaib\u2019s resolution to recognize \u201cthe genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza,\u201d Stratton said that \u201cthe devastation and suffering that we have seen is terrible\u201d and that \u201cwe must do everything we can\u201d to provide humanitarian aid to Gazans.<\/p>\n

Krishnamoorthi said he is concerned that people are \u201cextremely divided\u201d in determining \u201cwhat exactly happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy concern is this: division getting in the way of progress right now in this fragile ceasefire,\u201d he said. \u201cIf that gets in the way of progress, then we\u2019re going to go back to war. And we can\u2019t let that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelly added that she had not actually read Tlaib\u2019s resolution. \u201cBut as I just said, I think it was genocide,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Robin Kelly’s history in politics<\/p>\n

Kelly first took office in 2013. Since announcing her Senate run last year, she has adopted harsher stances on Israel.<\/p>\n

In August, she said she would have voted in favor of a pair of Bernie Sanders-led resolutions in the Senate that would block certain arms sales to Israel. And in the House, Kelly cosponsored the Block the Bombs Act that would withhold the transfer of offensive weapons to Israel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsraelis and Palestinians must work to secure a path forward where both peoples can live in peace, safety, and security,\u201d Kelly said in a statement at the time regarding Sanders\u2019 resolutions. \u201cI have supported Israel, but in this moment, I cannot in good conscience defend starving young children and prolonging the suffering of innocent families. Now is the time for moral leadership in the US Senate.\u201d<\/p>\n

At a candidates\u2019 forum in October, several candidates referred to Israel\u2019s campaign in Gaza as a \u201cgenocide,\u201d the Daily Northwestern reported.<\/p>\n

Kelly was not among them. But she pledged during the forum that she would not accept funds from AIPAC. That was a new position for Kelly, who accepted contributions from AIPAC\u2019s PAC in March and April 2025, according to FEC filings. She was endorsed by the liberal pro-Israel group J Street in her 2024 reelection campaign.<\/p>\n

At the forum, Stratton was the only candidate who recognized the upcoming two-year anniversary of Hamas\u2019s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Stratton and Krishnamoorthi did not swear off AIPAC contributions.<\/p>\n

The Democratic primary, set for March 17, is seen as a three-person race among Kelly, Stratton, and Krishnamoorthi. Kelly has garnered endorsements from several politicians, including Sens. Cory Booker and Chris Murphy. Stratton\u2019s endorsements include Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, while Krishnamoorthi has been endorsed by Bill Daley, who was Obama\u2019s White House chief of staff, and a number of state and US representatives.<\/p>\n

Unlike a handful of House elections in the state, this race has not seen any reported spending by pro-Israel groups, including AIPAC or its super PAC, the United Democracy Project. Jewish Insider reported last year that votes from Chicagoland\u2019s sizable Jewish community are \u201cup for grabs\u201d because no candidate has particularly deep ties to the community.<\/p>\n

Kelly has previously traveled to Israel as a member of Congress. In 2016, Kelly met with leaders from Chicago\u2019s Jewish United Fund and Jewish Community Relations Council to discuss her second trip to Israel. \u201cShe backs a two-state solution and supports Israel\u2019s ongoing security needs,\u201d the JUF wrote after the meeting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Illinois congresswoman who is running for US Senate said during a debate Thursday night that she believed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,16607,60,1901,85,9174,46,43,2467,17904],"class_list":{"0":"post-302072","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-antisemitism","9":"tag-antizionism","10":"tag-gaza-war","11":"tag-genocide","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-illinois","14":"tag-israel","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-rashida-tlaib","17":"tag-us-senate"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}