Georgia House’s vote to condemn ‘evil’ Hamas exposes Democratic divide

ATLANTA — The Georgia House adopted a resolution that condemned the deadly Hamas terrorist attack against Israel as a “disgusting display of hatred and evil” in a vote Monday that exposed a sharp Democratic divide over the growing conflict in the Middle East.

It passed 129-2 after an hourlong debate, with dozens of Democrats abstaining from the vote. Others were marked absent after several Democratic lawmakers said they wouldn’t back the measure.

The Georgia House resolution echoes a Georgia Senate measure that unanimously passed last week denouncing the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack that left 1,200 Israelis dead and more than 240 taken hostage.

Like the Georgia Senate measure, it made no mention of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza amid Israel’s retaliatory airstrikes and ground invasion, which Hamas said has killed more than 15,000 Palestinians.

That omission drew sharp condemnations from some House Democrats, who said the bipartisan resolution should have also referred to violence against Palestinian civilians.

Among them was state Rep. Spencer Frye, an Athens Democrat who said the resolution should “condemn the unilateral killing of innocent lives on both sides” and called for a cease-fire. He was one of about 30 of the chamber’s 78 Democrats who abstained, and nearly 20 others were excused from the vote.

Supporters stood by the language. State Rep. Esther Panitch, the only Jewish member of the Legislature, urged lawmakers to see the resolution as a focused condemnation of Hamas, “a bloodthirsty, genocidal regime openly promising to continue slaughtering innocent Jews.”

“This is the easiest moral test of our time — stand with Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, or stand with all of its victims,” the Democrat from Sandy Springs said.

And state Rep. Brent Cox, R-Dawsonville, said he authored the resolution to send an unequivocal signal that Georgia “stands with Israel.”

The vote underscored a rift among Democrats over Israel.

An Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll in November found that two-thirds of Georgians say supporting Israel should be a U.S. national security priority, including more than 80 percent of Republicans.

But Democrats are torn over the U.S. alliance with the Jewish state, with 40 percent disagreeing with the idea that “supporting Israel is in the national interest.”

While some lawmakers appeared surprised by the vote on the pro-Israel resolution last week, Democratic critics of the initiative were prepared Monday.

Opponents of the resolution packed the Capitol gallery — and were reprimanded by House Speaker Jon Burns for cheering each speech critical of the measure.

Others took aim at language in the resolution that extolled “brave Israeli soldiers who are exercising their nation’s right to self-defense by fighting back against the Hamas terrorists who seek the eradication of the Jewish people.”

State Rep. Ruwa Romman, a Democrat from Duluth and the lone Palestinian American in the state Legislature, said she wouldn’t vote for any measure that praised Israel’s military response.

“I cannot stand with Israel — not the Israeli people, but Israel and its government,” Romman said, noting her Palestinian grandparents were forcibly expelled from their homes decades ago.

She said the resolution sends a signal to Palestinian Georgians “who have lost hundreds of family members that their loss does not matter.”

“That’s cruel and simply not true,” said Romman, among the Democrats who didn’t cast a vote. “I will no longer engage in these games. Our constituents deserve better.”