Embattled Democratic Missouri Rep. Cori Bush appeared unwilling to call Hamas a terrorist organization in the days leading up to an expectedly tight primary, The New York Times reported.
Bush is headed into a hotly contested primary on Tuesday as her chances of reelection have significantly dimmed, according to polling. During a trip to Ferguson, Missouri, in recent days, Bush — who has been vocal about her criticisms of Israel and its military activities in Gaza — said that she didn’t want to call Hamas a terrorist organization, even though it is classified as such by the U.S. government and a majority of the West, according to the NYT.
“We were called terrorists during Ferguson,” Bush reportedly said outside of an early voting location in Ferguson days before the primary, referring to the 2014 murder of Michael Brown by a police officer and the ensuing protests in the city. “Have they hurt people? Absolutely. Has the Israeli military hurt people? Absolutely.”
Bush later repeated her stance while meeting with voters at a diner in Ferguson, noting that she was hesitant to assign the terrorist label to Hamas because she knew little about the issue.
“Would they qualify to me as a terrorist organization? Yes. But do I know that? Absolutely not,” Ms. Bush said, according to the NYT. “I have no communication with them. All I know is that we were considered terrorists, we were considered Black identity extremists and all we were doing was trying to get peace. I’m not trying to compare us, but that taught me to be careful about labeling if I don’t know.”
A spokesperson for Bush quickly walked back her comments, telling the NYT that Bush “knows Hamas is a terrorist organization” and adding that the terrorist label has been “weaponized by the far right consistently to justify violence and in this instance, the collective punishment of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.”
Bush, a progressive member of the Democratic Party and the “Squad,” has been outspoken about her criticism of Israel’s military activities against Hamas in Gaza and her views on the decades-long Israeli-Palesinitan conflict. Bush was one of the two lawmakers in the House — the other being Democratic Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib — who voted in January against a resolution to ban members of Hamas from coming to the United States.
Bush appears to be headed for defeat in Missouri’s Tuesday primary election, as her main opponent, county prosecutor Wesley Bell, continues to gain traction among voters. Bell is currently polling several points higher than Bush in multiple polls conducted in June and July, according to Five Thirty-Eight.
Bush’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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