Far-left Twitch streamer and rising Democratic Party figure Hasan Piker defended Hamas' "right to resist militarily" against Israel during a CNN interview on Sunday, while downplaying the group's anti-women and anti-LGBTQ stances.

Piker appeared in "The Left Insurgency," an episode of the documentary series "The Whole Story With Anderson Cooper," where he discussed his controversial comments with reporter Donie O'Sullivan. O'Sullivan referenced a bipartisan House resolution passed in April that condemned Piker's rhetoric, which some members of Congress said supported the terrorist organization Hamas.

Responding to the resolution, Piker said, "Well, I wouldn't say I express support for all of Hamas's actions or anything," but added, "I do say that the Palestinian resistance largely does have an internationally recognized right to resist. But at the end of the day, Palestinians do have a right to resist militarily."

The House resolution highlighted Piker's past remarks calling Hamas "a thousand times better than the fascist settler colonial apartheid state" of Israel, a comparison he reiterated on "Pod Save America." He stated, "I'm a lesser-evil voter and, therefore, I would vote for Hamas over Israel every single time because I'm looking at the situation as a paramilitary organization that has a political party as well, a political bureau as well that is entirely comprised not as an alien force but of orphaned children that have, you know, had their parents killed by an apartheid state that has been dominating the lives of Palestinians for 80 years at this point and have done a genocide at this point as well."

An Anti-Defamation League (ADL) spokesperson criticized Piker, saying, "Hasan Piker repeated multiple times that ‘Hamas is a thousand times better than Israel,’ while also shrugging off ‘war crimes.’ That is a person with more than 11 million followers sincerely expressing support for a designated terrorist organization, on a mainstream platform, to thunderous silence from the Democratic officials who continue to campaign and appear alongside him."

Additionally, longtime Democratic strategist James Carville recently stated he would leave the party if it continued to embrace Piker.

Sources