Of all the ridiculous arguments made by members of the anti-Israel lobby, the most absurd were on full display during a city council meeting in Oakland, California, Monday evening. Statements made by those of the pro-Hamas persuasion inadvertently revealed that these people are less concerned with the plight of the Palestinians than they are with their Jew-hatred.

The city council was considering a resolution to demand the release of the Israeli hostages that Hamas kidnapped during its surprise attack on October 7 and also the restoration of critical infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.

When one member of the city council suggested including a line condemning Hamas as a terrorist organization, the far-leftist pro-Hamas folks went ballistic in their effort to defend the group. One individual insisted that rightly characterizing Hamas as a terrorist group is “ridiculous, racist, and plays into genocidal propaganda.”

Another Hamas supporter claimed the terrorist group is a “resistance organization fighting for the liberation of the Palestinian people.”

A woman spoke up and parroted the ridiculous claim that “Israel murdered their own people on October 7^th,” pretending that Hamas did not deliberately murder Israeli civilians.

An Arab woman claimed that condemning Hamas “is very anti-Arab racist.”

Last night the Oakland City Council voted on a resolution to call for a ceasefire.

A city council member tried to insert language condemning Hamas.

This was the reaction… pic.twitter.com/r7aTb2mkrQ

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) November 28, 2023

Jewish members of the community were also in attendance and wore shirts that read “not in our name” and criticized Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. But others supported Israel. Tye Gregory, CEO of San Francisco’s Jewish Community Relations Council, declared that “There will be no Palestinian-Israeli peace with (Hamas) in power.”

The council ultimately rejected the inclusion of the line condemning Hamas. Council member Nikki Fortunato indicated that she respected the proposal but insisted that it overlooked the historical roots of the overall Israel/Palestinian conflict.

I’ll be blunt. These people don’t give two figs about the plight of the Palestinian civilians living in Gaza. If they did, they wouldn’t be so gung-ho about defending Hamas, which has carried out numerous human rights abuses against Gaza’s residents and is currently using them as human shields to maximize civilian casualties that they can use as propaganda weapons against Israel.

Both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have long and documented histories of subjecting Palestinian civilians to extrajudicial killings, torture, and other violations of natural rights. You can read about them here. If these were serious people, they might have some criticisms of Israel, but they certainly would not be defending the terrorist group that has been oppressing them for decades.

The harsh reality that most on the left would never admit is that the people we see demonstrating in the streets, tearing down posters displaying Israeli hostages, and even engaging in violence to push their agenda are characterized more by their hatred of the Jewish people than authentic concerns for Palestinians. This is why they support Hamas, which is intent on killing Israeli civilians and has repeatedly stated that its objective is to wipe out the Jewish people in the region. It is antisemitism that is motivating these people, not a desire to “free Palestine.”