00:00Socialist LA City Council member Nitya Raman, who is leading in the race for mayor, is coming
00:05in for harsh criticism over remarks she made at a candidate forum hosted by the Jewish community
00:10at the Skirbel Cultural Center on Tuesday evening, September 29th. Raman appeared, as did incumbent
00:16Mayor Karen Bass, though the two did not share the same stage. And the moderator asked Raman to
00:21explain her appearance on a podcast hosted by anti-Semite radical left-wing activist Hassan
00:27Piker. Raman said she would do the podcast again because she was trying to reach Piker's audience.
00:32The moderator then asked if Raman would do a podcast with someone known for hateful language
00:38toward Christians or Muslims or even Indian Americans like herself. And Raman said she would
00:43because she wanted to reach the voters wherever they were. That caused a murmur of disapproval in
00:48the audience. And then the moderator asked Raman if she still agreed with Hassan Piker that Israel
00:53had committed a quote-unquote genocide in Gaza. And Raman said she did. She said that she had trusted
00:59experts who had told her various things, all of which happened to be untrue. And yet she also said
01:05she believed the Jewish community had a right to worship freely and to express itself. What Raman didn't
01:11do or doesn't understand is that those two are connected. That harsh anti-Israel rhetoric, especially
01:16demonizing Israel and accusing it falsely of genocide, is used as a pretext for anti-Semitic
01:22attacks and demonstrations, such as a 2024 march that blocked the entrance to a synagogue and is
01:27now being investigated as a civil rights violation. Raman earned booze from the audience with that
01:32answer. And even though Karen Bass didn't exactly impress anybody with her answers about LA in general,
01:38she did reassure the audience that she did not see Israel's response to terrorism as a genocide
01:43and that she had worked with the Jewish community to secure synagogues and schools in the past.
01:48Many voters came in very skeptical of Bass, but after Raman's comments, many left the forum believing
01:53they could never vote for Nithya Raman and would have to go back to Bass even though they disapprove
01:58of the job she's done.
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