The candidates for Los Angeles mayor gave opposing takes on the war in Gaza on Tuesday night, with Councilmember Nithya Raman saying Israel has committed genocide and Mayor Karen Bass asserting the term is inappropriate. <\/p>\n
Appearing back to back at the Skirball Cultural Center, Bass and Raman both said they would fight to keep L.A.\u2019s Jewish residents safe. <\/p>\n
But Raman faced a spate of questions about her sit-down interview with leftist Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, a vehement critic of Israel, and her support from Democratic Socialists of America, which has called for the boycott of and divestment from Israel over its treatment of Palestinians.<\/p>\n
Moderator Alex Cohen, seated next to Raman onstage, asked the council member to explain her decision to portray Israel\u2019s actions as genocide, calling it a \u201chighly inflammatory term.\u201d<\/p>\n
Raman said she turned to international experts \u2014 including some Israeli experts \u2014 to make her decision. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat is what guided me to using that term in describing what\u2019s happening in Gaza,\u201d she said. \u201cI used it because I felt compelled to speak out about issues that we saw, and images that are coming, the targeting of hospitals, the deaths of children.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two candidates gave their remarks during a forum hosted by Jewish Federation Los Angeles and other groups, which focused on issues important to Jewish Angelenos.<\/p>\n
Once Bass took the stage, Cohen posed the Gaza question a second time, asking whether the mayor views the term genocide as appropriate.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I think of foreign affairs, especially conflicts, my focus is on how they impact the city of L.A. \u2014 and no, I don\u2019t,\u201d Bass responded.<\/p>\n
Bass said the schools she attended growing up had many Jewish students whose parents or grandparents were Holocaust survivors.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy job is to keep Angelenos safe, and I think there is a lot of divisiveness that happens, and I don\u2019t want to see that happen at all,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The war in Gaza began in 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked Israel, killing around 1,200 people and kidnapping 251. Israel\u2019s resulting counteroffensive has resulted in 74,000 Palestinian deaths<\/a>, according to figures issued by the Gaza Health Ministry.<\/p>\n The death toll has sparked condemnation from global leaders<\/a> and from human rights organizations. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking at the U.N. last week<\/a>, said assertions that Israel engaged in genocide were \u201cthe biggest lie of the century.\u201d<\/p>\n Genocide is considered an international crime. In the wake of the Holocaust, a United Nations convention has been defined as actions that are committed with the intention of destroying \u2014 in whole or in part \u2014 a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.<\/p>\n Raman has been endorsed by Democratic Socialists of America, which censured her in 2024 for seeking and accepting the endorsement of Democrats For Israel-Los Angeles, a Zionist group. Asked about her decision to accept the endorsement, Raman told Piker in May: \u201cI wouldn\u2019t seek it out now.\u201d<\/p>\n Cohen, the forum\u2019s moderator, told Raman her that her appearance on Piker\u2019s program was \u201cdeeply hurtful\u201d to many \u201cconsidering what Piker has said in the past about Jews.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou told ABC News, and I quote, that you \u2018vehemently disagree\u2019 with some of his statements,\u201d Cohen said. \u201cAnd yet that disagreement did not appear during that interview. We\u2019d like to ask what specifically drove your decision to appear on his program, and were you concerned in any way, shape or form that it could signal to Angelenos an endorsement of many of his views?\u201d<\/p>\n Piker has been accused of making antisemitic remarks, including calling ultra Orthodox Jews \u201cinbred,\u201d which he later said he regretted. <\/p>\n Raman said she has repeatedly spoken out against antisemitism, and was the first elected official at City Hall to denounce the October 2023 attack on Israel.<\/p>\n On her interview with Piker, she wanted to reach voters on a wide range of platforms, particularly at a time when young voters don\u2019t watch television news.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s important for us as elected officials, as people running for office, to go and speak to them even when you disagree with parts of those individuals\u2019 [views],\u201d Raman said.<\/p>\n The two candidates offered different assessments of BDS, the Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement targeting Israel over its treatment of Palestinians. Raman called the movement \u201ca legitimate form of peaceful protest.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I support people\u2019s right to protest,\u201d she said. \u201cI will fight for that right even when I don\u2019t agree with protesters, or when I agree with protesters.\u201d<\/p>\n Raman also noted that she does not have BDS as part of her platform.<\/p>\n Bass said she would oppose legislation that seeks to enact BDS at CIty Hall.<\/p>\n \u201cIf it came before the city council \u2014 it depends on what it is,\u201d she said. \u201cBut if it was calling for that I would oppose it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The candidates for Los Angeles mayor gave opposing takes on the war in Gaza on Tuesday night, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[12858,188428,13540,140247,339,6848,26686,4004,340,188426,48,52,51,47,50,49,1459,188425,32081,188427,188424],"class_list":["post-480425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-bass","tag-bds","tag-candidate","tag-cohen","tag-death","tag-decision","tag-endorsement","tag-gaza","tag-israel","tag-jewish-angelenos","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-part","tag-piker","tag-raman","tag-sit-down-interview","tag-term-genocide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}