Lefty NYC group not supporting Mamdani-backed DSA NY-13 canidate over controversial Hamas comments

A left-wing political club in Manhattan that endorsed New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has declined to do so for Darializa Avila Chevalier, a Democratic Socialist challenging Rep.Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) in the June 23 Democratic primary for New York’s 13th Congressional District, citing her refusal to condemn Hamas and the terrorist attacks it led in Israel on Oct.

7, 2023.The Broadway Democrats wrote in its newsletter on June 18 that it will be endorsing Espaillat, stating that it wasn’t “an easy choice for us.”“That is because Espaillat’s chief challenger, Darializa Avila Chevalier, refuses to condemn Hamas or anything about it, its Oct.7th and hundreds of other murderous assaults on Israeli people, its execution of its own political dissidents, its theocratic view of government and what a society is, its misogyny, its homophobia, its racism,” the group stated.“These statements about Chevalier’s positions are not mere rumor,” the political club wrote.

“At our own endorsement meeting, when asked to condemn Hamas and its Oct.7th attacks, she point-blank refused, turning the question into yet another attack on Israel.”During the March 12 endorsement meeting, the 32-year-old said the question of condemning Hamas in Gaza and Oct.

7 “ignores the 75 years of occupation that the Palestinian people have been subjected to and the conditions that folks were living under before this genocide began.”For its part, the Broadway Democrats stated that it doesn’t defend Israel’s actions, accusing it of “excessive slaughter in Gaza,” “illegal and hateful West Bank settlements” and “fascist statements of several of its cabinet members.”Still, members said, “we also see much good in Israel and its people, as there is much good in the Palestinian people, and we still believe we can have two states co-existing in Israel/Palestine.To achieve this, we will need—here and there—leaders of vision and peace, not of hatred and war.”A...