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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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Israeli Strike on Tehran Kills Bodyguard of Slain Hezbollah Chief

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi lays a wreath as he visits the burial site of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, on the outskirts of Beirut, Lebanon, June 3, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

A member of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah was killed in an Israeli air strike on Tehran alongside a member of an Iran-aligned Iraqi armed group, a senior Lebanese security source told Reuters and the Iraqi group said on Saturday.

The source identified the Hezbollah member as Abu Ali Khalil, who had served as a bodyguard for Hezbollah’s slain chief Hassan Nasrallah. The source said Khalil had been on a religious pilgrimage to Iraq when he met up with a member of the Kataeb Sayyed Al-Shuhada group.

They traveled together to Tehran and were both killed in an Israeli strike there, along with Khalil’s son, the senior security source said. Hezbollah has not joined in Iran’s air strikes against Israel from Lebanon.

Kataeb Sayyed Al-Shuhada published a statement confirming that both the head of its security unit and Khalil had been killed in an Israeli strike.

Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli aerial attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs in September.

Israel and Iran have been trading strikes for nine consecutive days since Israel launched attacks on Iran, saying Tehran was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons. Iran has said it does not seek nuclear weapons.

The post Israeli Strike on Tehran Kills Bodyguard of Slain Hezbollah Chief first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Hamas Financial Officer and Commander Eliminated by IDF in the Gaza Strip

Israeli soldiers operate during a ground operation in the southern Gaza Strip, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, July 3, 2024. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool via REUTERS

i24 News – The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), in cooperation with the General Security Service (Shin Bet), announced on Friday the killing of Ibrahim Abu Shamala, a senior financial official in Hamas’ military wing.

The operation took place on June 17th in the central Gaza Strip.

Abu Shamala held several key positions, including financial officer for Hamas’ military wing and assistant to Marwan Issa, the deputy commander of Hamas’ military wing until his elimination in March 2024.

He was responsible for managing all the financial resources of Hamas’ military wing in Gaza, overseeing the planning and execution of the group’s war budget. This involved handling and smuggling millions of dollars into the Gaza Strip to fund Hamas’ military operations.

The post Hamas Financial Officer and Commander Eliminated by IDF in the Gaza Strip first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Report: Wary of Assassination by Israel, Khamenei Names 3 Potential Successors

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, May 20, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS

i24 News – Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei named three senior clerics as candidates to succeed him should he be killed, the New York Times reported on Saturday citing unnamed Iranian officials. It is understood the Ayatollah fears he could be assassinated in the coming days.

Khamenei reportedly mostly speaks with his commanders through a trusted aide now, suspending electronic communications.

Khamenei has designated three senior religious figures as candidates to replace him as well as choosing successors in the military chain of command in the likely event that additional senior officials be eliminated.

Earlier on Saturday Israel confirmed the elimination of Saeed Izadi and Bhanam Shahriari.

Shahriari, head of Iran’s Quds Force Weapons Transfer Unit, responsible for arming Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, was killed in an Israeli airstrike over 1,000 km from Israel in western Iran.

The post Report: Wary of Assassination by Israel, Khamenei Names 3 Potential Successors first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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