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Ritchie Torres Slams Marc Lamont Hill for Supporting ‘Violence’ Against Israel, Dismissing ‘Demilitarized’ Palestinian State
US Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) on Morningside Drive in New York on Jan. 14, 2021. Photo: Lev Radin/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
US Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) slammed professor and Al Jazeera host Marc Lamont Hill after the latter, a prominent anti-Israel activist, criticized the congressman’s advocacy for the creation of a “demilitarized” Palestinian state and expressed support for terrorist violence against the Jewish state.
“Marc Lamont Hill went into a tirade against me for calling for a nonviolent demilitarized Palestinian state,” Torres wrote on X/Twitter.
On Thursday, Torres shared a video of Hill in which the pundit criticized the representative for insisting that Israel is “an innocent nation-state surrounded by Hezbollah, Hamas, [and] the Houthis,” all of which are internationally designated terrorist organizations backed by Iran. Hill also lambasted Torres’s support for a “demilitarized” Palestinian state, arguing that this would leave the Palestinians “under the literal gun of the Israeli military.”
“We’re talking about occupation, my friend,” Hill said in reference to Torres.
Hill continued, defending violence by Palestinian terrorist groups against Israel. Hill insisted that Palestinians “absolutely” need to engage in violence against the Jewish state, claiming that peaceful tactics will never help them achieve freedom and independence.
Marc Lamont Hill went into a tirade against me for calling for a nonviolent demilitarized Palestinian State.
He accuses me of lying about Israel being surrounded by the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah. Never mind the mass murder of 1200 Israelis by the former or the displacement… pic.twitter.com/UqLC3a497R
— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) September 5, 2024
“You keep talking about the ‘Free Palestine movement’ as if it’s bound up in violence, as if an oppressed and occupied people don’t have a right to resist,” Hill continued. “I’m not going to adopt a respectability politics that says, somehow, we can only support Palestinians if they say they’re non-violent.’ Sometimes you’ve got to be violent. When you’re fighting an oppressive, violent state you absolutely have to be violent. Hugs and flowers don’t get you freed from an apartheid ethnostate, just saying.”
Torres responded in apparent astonishment, questioning if Hill supports the indiscriminate slaughter of Israeli civilians by terrorist groups as a means to achieve Palestinian political goals.
“He insists Palestinians ‘absolutely’ have a right to be violent. Does that right to violence extend to the execution of the six hostages by Hamas? Does it include the abduction of an infant? The kidnapping of a Holocaust survivor? He dismisses any rejection of violence as ‘respectability politics.’”
Torres went on to say that Western anti-Israel activists encourage Palestinians to engage in counterproductive behavior which only perpetuates their immiseration.
“The Western anti-Zionists, glorifying violence from the comfort of their ivory towers, are doing an irreparable disservice to the very Palestinians they claim to champion,” Torres concluded.
Hill has a long history of peddling anti-Israel narratives and calling for explicit violence against the Jewish state.
In 2018, Hill was fired from his position as a CNN contributor for calling for “free Palestine from the river to the sea,” a popular slogan among anti-Israel activists that has been widely interpreted as a call for the destruction of the Jewish state, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Hill has also voiced support for the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement (BDS), an initiative which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as the first step toward its eventual destruction. The pundit also praised antisemitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan — a hate preacher who has referred to Jews as “termites” and called Nazi leader Adolph Hitler “a very great man.”
In 2019, Hill skewered mainstream media outlets as “Zionist” organizations, a nod to the antisemitic conspiracy theory notion that Jews control the media. The progressive activist also pushed an unsubstantiated claim that Israel is “poisoning” Palestinian drinking water. Mere weeks after Hamas’s Oct. 7 slaughter of 1,200 people across southern Israel, Hill argued during a podcast appearance that the Palestinian Islamist organization should be designated a legitimate “government” rather than a terrorist group.
The post Ritchie Torres Slams Marc Lamont Hill for Supporting ‘Violence’ Against Israel, Dismissing ‘Demilitarized’ Palestinian State first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Lebanon Must Disarm Hezbollah to Have a Shot at Better Days, Says US Envoy
Thomas Barrack at the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse in Brooklyn, New York, U.S., November 4, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo
i24 News – Lebanon’s daunting social, economic and political issues would not get resolved unless the state persists in the efforts to disarm Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy behind so much of the unrest and destruction, special US envoy Tom Barrack told The National.
“You have Israel on one side, you have Iran on the other, and now you have Syria manifesting itself so quickly that if Lebanon doesn’t move, it’s going to be Bilad Al Sham again,” he said, using the historical Arabic name for the region sometimes known as “larger Syria.”
The official stressed the need to follow through on promises to disarm the Iranian proxy, which suffered severe blows from Israel in the past year, including the elimination of its entire leadership, and is considered a weakened though still dangerous jihadist outfit.
“There are issues that we have to arm wrestle with each other over to come to a final conclusion. Remember, we have an agreement, it was a great agreement. The problem is, nobody followed it,” he told The National.
Barrack spoke on the heels of a trip to Beirut, where he proposed a diplomatic plan for the region involving the full disarmament of Hezbollah by the Lebanese state.
The post Lebanon Must Disarm Hezbollah to Have a Shot at Better Days, Says US Envoy first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Report: Putin Urges Iran to Accept ‘Zero Enrichment’ Nuclear Deal With US
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian on the sidelines of a cultural forum dedicated to the 300th anniversary of the birth of the Turkmen poet and philosopher Magtymguly Fragi, in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Oct. 11, 2024. Photo: Sputnik/Alexander Scherbak/Pool via REUTERS
i24 News – Russian President Vladimir Putin has told Iranian leadership that he supports the idea of a nuclear deal in which Iran is unable to enrich uranium, the Axios website reported on Saturday. The Russian strongman also relayed the message to his American counterpart, President Donald Trump, the report said.
Iranian news agency Tasnim issued a denial, citing an “informed source” as saying Putin had not sent any message to Iran in this regard.
Also on Saturday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated that “Any negotiated solution must respect Iran’s right to enrichment. No agreement without recognizing our right to enrichment. If negotiations occur, the only topic will be the nuclear program. No other issues, especially defense or military matters, will be on the agenda.”
The post Report: Putin Urges Iran to Accept ‘Zero Enrichment’ Nuclear Deal With US first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s Al-Sharaa Attending At Least One Meeting With Israeli Officials in Azerbaijan
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks during a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron after a meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, May 7, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Stephanie Lecocq/Pool
i24 News – Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa is attending at least one meeting with Israeli officials in Azerbaijan today, despite sources in Damascus claiming he wasn’t attending, a Syrian source close to President Al-Sharaa tells i24NEWS.
The Syrian source stated that this is a series of two or three meetings between the sides, with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani also in attendance, along with Ahmed Al-Dalati, the Syrian government’s liaison for security meetings with Israel.
The high-level Israeli delegation includes a special envoy of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, as well as security and military figures.
The purpose of the meetings is to discuss further details of the security agreement to be signed between Israel and Syria, the Iranian threat in Syria and Lebanon, Hezbollah’s weapons, the weapons of Palestinian militias, the Palestinians camps in Lebanon, and the future of Palestinian refugees from Gaza in the region.
The possibility of opening an Israeli coordination office in Damascus, without diplomatic status, might also be discussed.
The source stated that the decision to hold the meetings in Azerbaijan, made by Israel and the US, is intended to send a message to Iran.
The post Syria’s Al-Sharaa Attending At Least One Meeting With Israeli Officials in Azerbaijan first appeared on Algemeiner.com.