CNN commentator calls for elimination of Israel, endorses violent Palestinian ‘resistance’

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UPDATE:Marc Lamont Hill is no longer under contract with CNN,” a CNN spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

CNN commentator Marc Lamont Hill, in a Wednesday speech to the United Nations, called for violent resistance against Israel and advocated expanding Palestine “from the river to the sea,” a phrase used by those who believe that Israel should be eliminated.

Hill, who has a long history of anti-Semitism, made the remarks at a U.N. event commemorating the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. He said the international community should boycott Israel and allow Palestinians more space to engage in violence against the Jewish state, arguing that violence was also employed in the struggles of African Americans.

[Read more: Is CNN now just okay with genocidal rhetoric aimed at Jews?]

“Contrary to western mythology, black resistance to American apartheid did not come purely through Ghandi and nonviolence,” Hill said (see video below.) “Rather, slave revolts and self-defense and tactics otherwise divergent from Dr. King or Mahatma Gandhi were equally important to preserving safety and attaining freedom. If we are to operate in true solidarity with the Palestinian people, we must allow the Palestinian people the same range of opportunity and political possibility. If we are standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people, we must recognize the right of an occupied people to defend itself. We must prioritize peace, but we must not romanticize or fetishize it. We must advocate and promote nonviolence at every opportunity, but we cannot endorse a narrow politics of respectability that shames Palestinians for resisting, for refusing to do nothing in the face of state violence and ethnic cleansing.”

He urged grassroots, local, and international action to “Give us what justice requires — and that is a free Palestine from the river to the sea.”

The phrase “from the river to the sea” has been a rallying cry for Hamas and other terrorist groups seeking the elimination of Israel, as a Palestinian state stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea would mean that Israel would be wiped off the map.

Hill’s remarks are the latest example of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic statements.

Last year, Hill tweeted that it was “offensive” for President Trump to call on Palestinians to “reject hatred and terrorism.” Hill also defended a terrorist who killed two Jewish students and praised anti-Semitic leader Louis Farrakhan.

In a follow up tweet Wednesday, Hill wrote, “I believe in a single secular democratic state for everyone. This is the only way that historic Palestine will be free.” Such an idea would reject the existence of Israel as a Jewish homeland with the ability to defend itself, and cede control over to terrorist groups that have been seeking Jewish extermination. The reference to the “historic Palestine” also makes no sense, since no such place ever existed with defined borders.


Hill, a Temple University professor, is named as a CNN commentator on the channel’s website, which describes him as “one of the leading intellectual voices in the country.”

The video of Hill’s speech begins at around the 1 hour and 36 minute mark, with the comments quoted hear occurring roughly after the 1:51 mark.

Note: An earlier version of this article cited a report from Arutz Sheva. It was updated once the video became available.

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