Colorado Democratic Socialist candidate Melat Kiros recently said the Sept. 11 and Oct. 7 terrorist attacks were “inevitable” in the wake of U.S. and Israeli military actions across the Middle East.
During a June 22 interview with Colorado’s Next 9News, Kiros was questioned about remarks she made on far-left Twitch streamer Hasan Piker’s show, where she described Hamas’ attack on Israel as “an inevitable consequence of apartheid, of occupation, decades of occupation.”
Kiros rejected the suggestion that she was saying Israel “had it coming,” but argued that, when viewed in the context of the video, her comments were meant to highlight the “conditions” she believes contributed to the attack.
“It’s about understanding the conditions in which violence and war happen, right?” Kiros said. “Israel is a country that has been accused of apartheid and occupation for decades now and has been able to resist any kind of change despite all of the frustration on the world stage that people have had for the conditions that Palestinians have been living in.”
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9News journalist Kyle Clark then asked whether she also viewed the 9/11 attacks as an “inevitable consequence” of U.S. foreign policy.
“Inevitable in the sense that we destabilized a lot of the Middle East, which led people to believe that another act of violence was the only response. And again, just like I said before, our responsibility is to get rid of those conditions that lead to violence in the first place,” Kiros said.
Fox News Digital contacted Kiros’ campaign seeking comment.
Prior to launching her campaign, Kiros was dismissed from her role at the Sidley Austin law firm in 2023 after publishing an open letter that criticized law firms, including Sidley Austin, for urging action against antisemitism on college campuses.
“By chilling future lawyers’ employment prospects for criticism of the Israeli government’s actions and its legitimacy, you are complicit in Israel’s weaponization of anti-Semitism against legitimate concerns for the right of self-determination and the livelihood of the Palestinian people. By conflating ‘calls for the elimination of the Israeli state’ with anti-Semitism, you delegitimize any solution that forces Israel to reckon with its colonial role in Palestine, including one-state solutions called for by Palestinians and Israelis alike — one state, under the historic Palestine, where all citizens are equal under the rule of law, regardless of religion or ethnicity,” Kiros wrote.
Kiros is also the latest in a growing list of candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America to oust incumbent Democratic politicians ahead of the midterm elections.
