Those of you who think Kyle Clark only roasts Republicans should check out his recent interview with Melat Kiros, the lawyer trying to oust Diana DeGette in the Denver-area Democratic congressional primary.
On her “about” page, Kiros brags about two things: she lost her law firm job for publicly criticizing Israel, and she’s “running as a Democratic Socialist.”
Kiros on Israel
Before we get to the interview, let’s look at Kiros’s 2023 article on Israel. Kiros begins by superficially condemning antisemitism but then immediately suggests that “calls for the elimination of the Israeli state” should not be considered antisemitism. Indeed, she equates the state of Israel with “violent colonialism.”
Notice the “but” here: “There is no justification for the attacks on Israel on October 7th. . . but it cannot be forgotten that violence does not occur in a vacuum.” Kiros hopes that “the people in Palestine and Israel might one day live together as neighbors, in peace, without fear of persecution, under a new government.”
In her 34-minute chat with Clark, Kiros shows that she’s smart and articulate, although less so when Clark gets around to asking her about Israel starting around the 18:34-minute mark. Kiros says that the U.S. government should not sell Israel weapons and condemns (her words) “the systemic oppression that’s taking place against Palestinians right now.” She accuses Israel of “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing.”
Kiros was slightly more circumspect in describing centrist Democrats than in describing Israel, telling Clark that she regretted posting an ad to social media saying that Israel-supporting Democrats “fellate Israel” and “suck shit.”
Clark asked: “You’ve said that the October 7 massacre of Israeli civilians by Hamas fighters was the ‘inevitable consequence of apartheid.’ Can you explain what you meant by that?”
After saying that she opposes “innocent loss of life,” Kiros added that people should see “why this violence is happening in the first place.” She urges us “to understand that certain conditions lead people to feeling like violence is their only answer.”
It sounds to me as though Kiros is blaming Israel for the violence perpetrated against Israeli citizens. Completely absent from her analysis is any recognition of the deep-seated hatred of Jews voiced by Hamas.
The Council on Foreign Relations points out that Hamas’s charter calls “for the murder of Jews, the destruction of Israel, and in Israel’s place, the establishment of an Islamic society in historic Palestine.”
Clark followed up: “Do you believe that the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America were the ‘inevitable consequence’ of American foreign policy?”
After some back and forth, Kiros said the attacks were “inevitable in the sense that we destabilized a lot of the Middle East, that forced people to believe that another act of violence was the only response.”
To restate, Kiros is saying that United States policies “forced” Osama bin Laden to organize an assault on America, resulting in the murder of nearly three-thousand people. Huh.
After a bit Clark asked about the firebombing in Boulder. Kiros was unable to state the obvious, that it was an antisemitic attack, saying instead, “I don’t know what was in the heart of the perpetrator, all I know was that he went and attacked innocent people.”
Much earlier in the interview, by the way, Clark asked Kiros about socialism versus capitalism. She replied, “We already have socialism. It’s in the roads that we drive on, it’s in our fire stations, it’s in the public schools we send our kids to.” She merely wants to extend such “socialism” to health care, food, “universal childcare,” “universal elder care,” and housing. In other words, the fact that government spends money on anything is, for Kiros, a reason for government to spend money on everything, at least so far as “basic needs” go, however she intends to define that.
Some Republicans embrace antisemitism
While Kiros dances around distinctions between “anti-Zionism” and antisemitism sufficiently to avoid obviously falling into the second category, some Republicans, shamefully, overtly embrace antisemitism.
Joe Oltmann, one-time candidate for governor as well as state GOP chair, referred to Colorado’s Jewish leaders, Jared Polis, Phil Weiser, and Jena Griswold, as well as Republican DA Dan Rubinstein, who in that capacity prosecuted Tina Peters for election crimes, as part of a “synagogue of Satan Jews.”
In addition to promoting antisemitism, Oltmann has repeatedly called for political violence. Recently he said, “I think violence is going to be necessary” and “I think we know who our targets are.”
But, far from clearly and publicly condemning Oltmann, too many Republicans either have buddied up to Oltmann or else, like cowards, held their tongues.
During a 9News debate, GOP candidate for governor Scott Bottoms, for example, said that he’d “probably” find a place for Oltmann in his administration “assuming it’s not around Jewish people.”
Following her release from prison thanks to Jared Polis’s clemency, Tina Peters appeared on Oltmann’s podcast. There, continuing with her election conspiracy mongering, she said, “I do show remorse. The remorse is that people that should be in prison are not.”
While some Republican leaders are trying to drag their party back to normalcy and moral decency, others, including Oltmann, Bottoms, and Peters, are determined to continue to drag it to the pits of depravity.
Colorado deserves so much better.
Ari Armstrong writes regularly for Complete Colorado and is the author of books about Ayn Rand, Harry Potter, and classical liberalism. He can be reached at ari at ariarmstrong dot com.
