Hasan Piker this week again cast Hamas in a favorable light, refusing to back away from his support for the terrorist organization that has controlled Gaza, despite backlash from many Democrats.
Piker was known for years as a popular Twitch streamer before emerging this year as an increasingly influential political voice in certain Democratic circles that are seeking to push the party to the left. His growing presence in the Democratic Party has been controversial among more centrist figures, due to concerns that he is antisemitic, including repeated denials or downplaying of sweeping sexual violence against Jews in Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack, saying he “would vote for Hamas over Israel every single time,” and calling Hamas “a thousand times better” than Israel.
During an interview on Channel 4 News UK TrumpWorld, Piker reiterated his support for Hamas as a critical part of the “Palestinian resistance.” He said he didn’t “love” the terrorist group, and didn’t necessarily support it governing Gaza, arguing he is “simply looking at this in the most pragmatic and in the most realistic ways possible.”
“I think Hamas’s current position, as far as I understand it, is far more moderate than its position was at its inception,” Piker said. “They’ve recognized that it’s virtually impossible to advance this vengeance quest against Israel.”
“They exist under a colonial occupation. Gaza is a hermetically sealed open-air prison before Oct. 7 as well,” he added. “So, I think a lot of the violence or the brutality in terms of governance stems from that. I don’t think it’s, like, an ideological disagreement.
Piker has particularly gained attention this year for campaigning with Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee, Abdul el Sayed. More centrist figures have raised uproar over elements of the Democratic Party embracing Piker and have denounced his move to attach himself to the party, but he has largely refused to back away from views that have traditionally been considered extremist by both parties. They include Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), who warned Thursday that Piker and other socialists “can’t coexist with me,” during an interview on Fox Business Network’s Varney & Co.
When pressed on Hamas’s human rights violations, Piker has been generally dismissive. As an extremist Islamist organization, Hamas holds fundamentalist Muslim views that severely restrict women’s personal freedoms and has criminalized being gay in Gaza.
“It’s not an endorsement of their domestic policies,” Piker said during a CNN interview in early August. “But I don’t think anyone actually cares about their domestic policies. I certainly don’t.”
“Every Palestinian, at the end of the day, regardless of their disagreements with Hamas, will always say that Israel is still — the Israeli occupation is the greatest problem that they’re facing, the most existential problem that they’re facing,” he added.
Piker has also repeatedly downplayed Hamas’s rape and other sexual atrocities committed during its Oct. 7 attack on Israeli civilians at a music festival.
“Even if there was multiple rapes that took place on Oct. 7, this does not change anything for me in this dynamic,” Piker said in 2024.
Around 1,200 Jews were murdered in the Oct. 7 ambush. A human rights commission’s report released in May, among other findings, determined “sexual and gender-based violence was systematic, widespread, and integral” to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack and its subsequent approach to Israeli hostages in Gaza. The Civil Commission on October 7 Crimes by Hamas Against Women and Children said Hamas committed gang rapes, constituting war crimes and genocidal acts under international law, echoing previous findings of survivors documented in the Dinah Project.
In response to Piker’s latest comments on Wednesday, the Anti-Defamation League and Republican Jewish Coalition expressed concern that the streamer’s positioning is “a flashing red warning to Jewish voters.”
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“Hasan Piker’s claim that Hamas has grown ‘more moderate’ is outrageous. Hamas remains a U.S.-designated terrorist organization committed to Israel’s destruction, responsible for the Oct. 7 massacre and continued abuse of the very Palestinians it claims to represent,” an Anti-Defamation League spokesperson told Fox News. “Any candidate or platform that hosts him or associates with him without challenge lends legitimacy to that rhetoric.”
“His rising influence inside the Democratic Party is a flashing red warning to Jewish voters about exactly where that party is headed, and it isn’t with us,” RJC National Political Director Sam Markstein added.