Hochul: We Need to ‘Free the Palestinians’ from Hamas

On Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) discussed her trip to Israel and said that one reason for the trip was to help bolster the resolve to “free the Palestinians from the stranglehold of Hamas.”

Hochul said, “New York City has more Jews than Tel Aviv and Jerusalem combined, 2.2 million. So, everybody knew somebody. Everybody had experienced real pain, and I needed to go there and just let people know that we stand with Israel. We condemn the terrorist act of Hamas. And I needed to see and bear witness and tell the stories upon my return, to strengthen our resolve, to eradicate evil in places in Gaza, and free the Palestinians from the stranglehold of Hamas. I’m concerned about innocent Palestinians, of course we are, but what Hamas did on October 7 will go down in the annals of history as one of the worst terrorist attacks in terms of the scale of the population. I met the refugees from one community, and I went to that place one mile from the border, Joe, and a population of 700. This is a kibbutz. These are basically — if they were in the U.S., they’d probably be — some of them would be hippies. These are peace-loving people, peace activists, they lost 70 of their own residents, 10% of the population slaughtered that day, and many were taken hostage. I needed to see that, talk to the leaders about our own hostages, but also just to give comfort to people who, in turn, were trying to give me comfort. It was something I’ll never forget.”

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