Ro Khanna drew a hard line in a Drop Site News interview on Tuesday after returning from the West Bank. He called the Oct. 7 attack a terrorist attack, but would not say Hamas had a right to attack Israeli soldiers or kill Israelis.
Khanna on Oct. 7
Khanna said, "I think the Oct. 7 attack was a terrorist attack." He also said, "I’m not going to say that Hamas had a right to attack Israeli soldiers or kill Israelis."
That answer came after a trip to the West Bank in which Khanna said the Palestinians he met "just want to live their lives in dignity and peace." He was speaking on Tuesday, and the interview became part of his media tour after he returned to the U.S.
Jeremy Scahill Challenges Khanna
Jeremy Scahill pressed him on the same point, saying, "I am baffled as to how you can say that Israel had a right to drop a single bomb on Gaza in response to Oct. 7" and, "But Palestinians, according to you, have no right whatsoever to ever kill an Israeli." Khanna said Israel had a right to go after Hamas terrorists who killed civilians on Oct. 7, but not "in the way they went about it, which I said is genocide."
When asked about armed resistance against Israeli occupation soldiers in uniform, Khanna did not give a flat no. He said, "I think if it’s self-defense, if they feel like there’s an illegal attack on them by a violent settler or by an Israeli soldier and that’s illegal, in a school or on a civilian, then of course they should have justice," then added, "I will look at it, but I don’t think that the solution in that area is to encourage [violence]."
Drop Site News and the backlash
The exchange landed against a sharper backdrop for Drop Site News and Khanna. Drop Site launched in July 2024 with an 8,000-word interview with two senior Hamas leaders, and the outlet has gained a reputation for credulously reporting on Hamas’ claims and repeating the group’s propaganda.
That history helped make the interview a combustible one: Khanna’s refusal to endorse the Oct. 7 attack clashed with Scahill’s criticism, while Khanna’s own remarks left him defending a distinction between armed attacks and self-defense in cases he described as illegal attacks by a violent settler or an Israeli soldier. The open point now is how far he will carry that distinction when he says he will look at it.
