Gov. Kathy Hochul Walks Back Analogy Implying It Is ‘Israel’s Right’ To Annihilate Gaza

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul walked back her comments from last week that implied Israel has the right to annihilate Gaza in response to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants.

On Thursday, the Democratic governor delivered a keynote address at a Jewish philanthropy event in New York City. In her speech, Hochul said that Hamas “must be stopped” and created an analogy between Gaza and Canada.

“If Canada someday ever attacked Buffalo, I’m sorry my friends, there would be no Canada the next day. Right, right?” she told attendees at an event for the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of New York. Hochul herself is from Buffalo, a city in New York that sits on the U.S.-Canada border.

“But think about that, that is a natural reaction,” the governor continued. “You have a right to defend yourself and to make sure that it never happens again. And that is Israel’s right.”

Hochul’s analogy did not appear to imply that the same right also applies to Palestinians, who have lived under Israeli occupation for decades and who have faced increased violence at the hands of the Israeli government and military since Oct. 7. As of Sunday, Israel has killed nearly 30,000 Gazans, most of whom are women and children, in the name of self-defense.

Footage of the governor’s remarks spread on social media, resulting in swift backlash over her analogy that hypothetically wipes Canada — an actual state and not an occupied territory — off the map, and her justification of Israel’s continued massacre of Palestinians. Many rights groups consider remarks like Hochul’s that justify intentionally decimating a nation and its people to be genocidal language.

“Disgusting. No words,” the Buffalo chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace tweeted in response to Hochul’s