Los Angeles mayoral candidate and City Council member Nithya Raman leads Mayor Karen Bass in several polls, although that could change after comments Raman made during a Tuesday forum. The Jewish Los Angeles Mayoral Forum featured back-to-back conversations with Raman and Bass on Tuesday evening. Moderated by Spectrum News host Alex Cohen, candidates were asked about issues impacting L.A.'s Jewish residents.
The event was held only days after a University of California Berkeley Institute of Government Studies poll gave Raman an 11-point lead over Bass, with one-third of voters still undecided five weeks before the November 3 general election. However, some of those undecided voters could have been swayed after Raman made comments that inspired audible reactions from the crowd on multiple occasions. Newsweek reached out to the Bass and Raman campaigns by email on Wednesday for comment.
At one point in the discussion, Raman was asked to explain her use of the word "genocide" when she has described events in the Gaza Strip. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denied allegations that Israel is committing genocide there involving civilians and the Israeli military. On Tuesday night, Raman said she did use the term and explained that she is "not an expert on these issues" and has looked to experts to frame her understanding, adding that the experts, including Israelis, have used the term.
"That is what guided me to using that term in describing what's happening in Gaza," Raman said, drawing gasps from the crowd. "I do want to underscore here that I recognize that the word 'genocide' is a deeply painful word. I understand its historical context and the weight of that historical context for the world...and I used it because other experts have used it to describe what's happening.
I used it because I felt compelled to speak out about issues we saw, the images that are coming, the targeting of hospitals, the deaths of children." The crowd reacted again with gasps, although there was scattered applause. Raman went on to say that she condemned the Hamas attacks against Israel on October 7, 2023, "without reservation" and that she will continue to speak up. In a statement after the October 7 attacks, Raman said: "Our district is home to beautiful Israeli and Jewish-American communities, and so many who have family in Israel.
I cannot imagine the terror they are experiencing. I stand with them in condemning the horrific violence by Hamas and praying for a peaceful end to this conflict." In July, the shared results from an AP-NORC poll that found one-third of U.S. adults, roughly half of which were Democrats, believed that Israel committed genocide during the Gaza war. Thirty percent of Jewish adults said they believed Israel had committed genocide, with 49 percent saying it has not.
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