Anti-Israel Group Compares California Fires to 'Genocide in Gaza'

Friday, 10 January 2025 | The anti-Israel group Code Pink, which has regularly followed members of Congress through the Capitol building accusing them of supporting “genocide” in Gaza, drew widespread criticism for comparing the wildfires devastating California and Israel’s war against the Hamas terror organization in the Strip.

An organizer for the group posted a video outside the office of Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), whose “state is being ravaged by fires and the climate disaster,” she said. “At the same time, Congress is set to pass US $8 billion more to Israel to continue to bomb and obliterate people in Gaza.”

 “We are drawing the parallels where people in communities in California are being evacuated from their homes and people in Gaza have been evacuated from their homes for the past 15 months,” the keffiyeh-clad organizer added.

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) wrote that “the nature of antisemitism is to scapegoat the Jewish people and the Jewish state for everything wrong in the world—no matter how tenuous the causal connection.”

“Toward that end, the antisemites of Code Pink are blaming the Jewish state for the wildfires in California,” Torres wrote. “The modus operandi of antisemitism is slanderous scapegoating: when in doubt, blame the Jews.”

Jeff Jacoby, a columnist for The Boston Globe op-ed, wrote that “rabid antisemites have falsely blamed Jews for everything—the Black Death, communism, the slave trade, high rents, killing Jesus, 9/11, Germany’ WWI defeat, control of the economy, you name it.”

“Now, thanks to Code Pink’s crazies, you can add California wildfires to the list,” he wrote.