{"id":548688,"date":"2026-07-19T07:31:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T07:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/548688\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T07:31:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T07:31:11","slug":"maine-senate-hopefuls-accuse-israel-of-genocide-in-bid-to-replace-platner-israel-jewish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/548688\/","title":{"rendered":"Maine Senate hopefuls accuse Israel of genocide in bid to replace Platner – Israel & Jewish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

(July 19, 2026 \/ JNS)\n <\/p>\n

Eight Democrats seeking to replace former Senate nominee Graham Platner participated in two televised debates on Thursday, with some accusing Israel of genocide.<\/p>\n

During the first hour<\/a> 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 \u201cdraw those moral lines.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been very involved in human rights work. I\u2019ve been protesting the need for Palestinian statehood, a two-state solution. I care deeply about the people in Gaza,\u201d Wood said.<\/p>\n

He noted that Platner got into the race already describing Israel\u2019s war against Hamas as \u201cgenocide.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cVoters 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,\u201d Wood said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be difficult, but it is one thing that I took from Graham that I embrace that position now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shannon Bellows, secretary of state in Maine, said that Democrats should equally recognize \u201cthe harm of Oct. 7″ while also recognizing that \u201cwhat Netanyahu is doing in Gaza is genocide.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can hold both of those ideas and speak the truth,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Nirav Shah, former director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, said Congress should immediately cut U.S. aid to Israel. \u201cRight now, there\u2019s 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\u2019s occurring in Gaza,\u201d he said. \u201cRight off the top, that\u2019s $3 billion that could be spent on food for hungry kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the debate\u2019s second hour<\/a>, 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 \u201cwasps and hornets.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t go and provoke them,\u201d Webb said. \u201cLike attacking Iran, we provoked them. Personally, I don\u2019t think we should have done that. I think we should have left them alone. They weren\u2019t doing anything to us.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as I know, there wasn\u2019t any threats they were making toward us in the claim that they were making nuclear weapons,\u201d Webb said. \u201cI don\u2019t think they found any evidence of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Webb also said that \u201cas far as the Gaza Strip goes, we\u2019re funding that war too, I believe. I believe we\u2019re giving Israel money to buy the weapons that they\u2019re using. I don\u2019t think we should be doing that, because we\u2019re provoking them, as well. I think we should just pull out of that altogether.\u201d<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s Democratic Party must select a candidate by July 27.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(July 19, 2026 \/ JNS) Eight Democrats seeking to replace former Senate nominee Graham Platner participated in two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-548688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548688","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=548688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}