Like Hamas, both America and Israel have “blood on their hands.” That is the view of prominent civil rights activist and former Harvard Divinity School philosophy professor Cornel West Cornel West, who on Sunday seemed to justify the terror group’s monstrous operation which saw the deaths and kidnappings of hundreds of men, women, and children, calling it a form of resistance to “oppression.”
West, who is running as a 2024 presidential candidate not under the Democrat party but the People’s Party, offered his response to media requests as to his “aim” during the current conflict if he were president.
“I would stop the killing of innocent people – be they Palestinians or Israelis – by calling for an end to the vicious U.S.-supported Israeli occupation,” the leftist stated. “This violent resistance to oppression is the desperate language of an occupied people.”
Palestinians transport a captured Israeli civilian, center, from Kibbutz Kfar Azza into the Gaza Strip on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Hatem Ali, File)
Palestinian militants drive an Israeli military vehicle that was seized by gunmen who infiltrated areas of southern Israel, in the northern Gaza Strip. ( Ahmed Zakot/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Citing American civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King Jr., West insisted “only a genuine peace with justice can stop the barbarism of war and domination.”
“In this sense, the U.S. government, the Israeli government, and the occupied Hamas forces have blood on their hands,” he argued.
He then called to “fight for the masses of Palestinians and Israelis to live with dignity and security!”
“As I have said for the past fifty years, a precious Palestinian child has the same value as a precious Israeli child!” he added.
This is my response to the many media requests as to what my aim would be as President in regard to the catastrophe in the Middle East: “I would stop the killing of innocent people – be they Palestinians or Israelis – by calling for an end to the vicious U.S.-supported Israeli…
— Cornel West (@CornelWest) October 8, 2023
In another post, West attempted to equate the unprovoked terror attack with what he termed the “vicious Israeli occupation.”
“The escalation of the barbaric violence in the Middle East must stop! The vicious Israeli occupation and the ugly Palestinian retaliation results in the killing of precious innocent people on both sides! We must have a lasting peace based on justice!” he concluded.
The escalation of the barbaric violence in the Middle East must stop! The vicious Israeli occupation and the ugly Palestinian retaliation results in the killing of precious innocent people on both sides! We must have a lasting peace based on justice! #TruthJusticeLove #Israel…
— Cornel West (@CornelWest) October 7, 2023
In a previous statement published by his campaign manager, West “urged for peace,” while claiming that “[u]ntil the global community holds up the value of precious Palestinian lives in line with the value of precious Jewish lives, this violent cycle of death and destruction will continue unabated.”
Calling for an immediate cessation of “all” violence, including “violent rhetoric” uttered by Western nations, the career academic insisted “Western nations and colonial powers from right here in the United States to the European Union must be conscious of their language as this situation unfolds.”
“We need not allow our words to act as fuel to exacerbate a fire that’s been burning for too many decades,” he added.
He also urged President Joe Biden and other world leaders to “spend less time conjuring a fog of war with subjective and violent vernacular associated with who does and who doesn’t have the right to defend themselves, and more time evoking a language of love and dignity for all people involved.”
He concluded by placing the responsibility for the conflict on the West and the Jewish state, despite it being the victim of the unprovoked attack.
“However, this will not be a reality until Israel and Western nations understand that the pathway to and for peace in the Holy Land must be parallel with a pathway to and for liberation and dignity for Palestine,” he stated.
STATEMENT FROM CORNEL WEST FOR PRESIDENT:
Dr. Cornel West Calls for Immediate Cessation of Violence in the Holy Land and for an End to the Illegal Occupation of Palestinians. Urges Western Colonial Powers to Be Conscious of Their Rhetoric and to Push for Peace, Not War…
— Peter Daou (@peterdaou) October 7, 2023
West announced his bid for the presidency in June.
“In these times, I have decided to run for truth and justice which takes the form of running for President of the United States as a candidate for the People’s Party,” West said in an announcement video posted to social media, explaining that the presidency is “one vehicle to pursuit a truth and justice.”
I am running for truth and justice as a presidential candidate for the People’s Party to reintroduce America to the best of itself – fighting to end poverty, mass incarceration, ending wars and ecological collapse, guaranteeing housing, health care, education and living wages for… pic.twitter.com/u3NYGUbG1S
— Cornel West (@CornelWest) June 5, 2023
The former Harvard Divinity School philosophy professor is no stranger to controversy.
In 2021, he declared American police “have been out of control since the slave patrol.”
Previously, he expressed his belief that then President Donald Trump was becoming the “American version of a Hitler and a Mussolini” after Trump told members of the “Squad” to go back to their countries of origin even though three of them were born in the United States.
West also called Trump a “fascist Frankenstein,” stating that this is a “very historic and pivotal moment in the history of this nation” because “this democratic experiment” could “come to an end.”
Joshua Klein is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jklein@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.