CUNY professor Marc Lamont Hill, the former CNN correspondent who was fired after calling for a "free Palestine from the river to the sea" at the United Nations, defended the Hamas terrorist organization during a Congressional Black Caucus panel discussion with 'Squad' members Rep. Rashida Tlaib and Rep. Cori Bush on Thursday, the Washington Free Beacon reported. "As a non-Palestinian, it is not my job to tell people how to liberate themselves. It is not my job to tell people how to be free," Hill said, calling Hamas the "democratically elected organization that has been systematically undermined." Hamas won the 2006 legislative elections in Gaza, but it seized power in a violent coup that expelled the Palestinian Authority from the enclave in 2007 and has not held elections in the last 17 years. Hill said, "When we have the conversation of Hamas, don’t just talk about them like they’re some irrational, crazy people." He further stated that Hamas should not be judged because it exists "against the backdrop of Israeli settler states that sexually abuse people, that steal land, that kill people, that never hold on to a treaty." Related articles: Marc Lamont Hill blasts Rep. Ritchie Torres Marc Lamont Hill: Hamas shouldn't be treated as terrorists CUNY official to step down after hiring antisemitic commentator Can it be that CUNY hired this radically anti-Israel professor? The panel, titled "The Struggle for Black and Palestinian Liberation," also featured Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mi), Rep. Cori Bush (D., Mo.), Palestinian Arab Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman, and former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan. Corri Bush nodded while Hill defended Hamas, the Free Beacon reported. Hasan was the only person on the panel to push back on his defense of the terrorist organization. This is not the first time Hill has defended Hamas or its 'right' to commit acts of violence. In 2014, he published an opinion piece lamenting the existence of Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system, a purely defensive system that shoots down rockets aimed at populated areas, because it reduces the leverage Hamas has against Israel. In 2018, Hill delivered a speech at the United Nations International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people in which he stated that the world cannot "fetishize non-violence" for the Palestinian Arabs and called for a "free Palestine from the river to the sea," a call for the destruction of the State of Israel and its inhabitants and a slogan of Hamas. Less than a month after the October 7 massacre in which 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were murdered and more than 250 taken hostage, Hill denied that Hamas is even a terrorist organization during an appearance on Briahna Joy Gray’s “Bad Faith” program and argued that it should be considered a legitimate "government" instead. Earlier this month, Hill attacked Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) for Torres' defense of Israel and criticism of Hamas; violent strategy and tactics. Hill stated that Torres' criticism of Hamas "making it seem as if Israel is this innocent nation-state surrounded by Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis is ridiculous." "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," he claimed. "I'm not going to adopt a respectability politics that says that somehow, we can only support Palestinians if they say they're nonviolent. Sometimes you've got to be violent. When you're fighting an oppressive, violent state, you absolutely have to be violent."
