The “Uncommitted” movement that failed to get a representative to speak on stage at the Democratic National Convention last week had pushed at least one potential speaker — Palestinian-American Georgia state Rep. Ruwa Romman — who downplayed the significance of the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks and, in her proposed remarks, compared Israeli hostages being held in Gaza to Palestinian detainees.

According to proposed remarks published by Mother Jones, Romman sought to speak at length about her family’s Palestinian identity and to praise the “beautiful, multifaith, multiracial, and multigenerational coalition rising from despair within our Democratic Party” which, she said, “stood together, demanding to enforce our laws on friend and foe alike to reach a ceasefire, end the killing of Palestinians, free all the Israeli and Palestinian hostages, and to begin the difficult work of building a path to collective peace and safety.”

She also planned to support Vice President Kamala Harris.

Romman has a long track record of questionable rhetoric. On the afternoon of Oct. 7, Romman issued an equivocal statement calling for “an immediate cease-fire and de-escalation” that made no explicit mention of Hamas, instead referring to the “horrific bloodshed” and “ongoing violence surrounding the Gaza Strip.”

“What we are seeing unfold is the result of decades of policy failures and an inability by leaders to come to a just solution for all living in the region,” Romman said. “We cannot keep pretending that Palestinian people do not exist or ignore the rise of settler violence aimed at them.”

She added that “the inability of leaders to come to a peace agreement has enabled violent stakeholders to fill the vacuum” and “lack of justice leads to violence and the only way we can increase safety in any community is by alleviating oppression.”

Romman said that “we absolutely can, and should condemn violence and terror,” without directly mentioning who the victims of that violence were, while specifically condemning “settler violence and terror” against Palestinians, which she said “has served as a rallying cry for this most recent escalation.”

Within the past few days, Romman has accused Israel of genocide and described it as a fascist government being enabled by the United States. And she said the Biden administration cannot be serious in its efforts to reach a cease-fire unless it stops sending weapons to Israel.

Asked on a May Atlanta Journal-Constitution podcast appearance if she supports a two-state solution, Romman did not clearly answer in the affirmative and suggested she supports a one-state outcome.

“I don’t know what a Palestinian state can look like now. If you look at a map, there is no contiguous Palestinian territory,” Romman said. “Respectfully, to everybody who keeps repeating the two-state solution, how would that even look like? … I think people can absolutely live side by side in one nation.”

In December, Romman refused to vote on a resolution denouncing Hamas and its supporters in the United States, standing with the Jewish community and offering support for Israel’s self-defense. 

She said in floor debate on that resolution that she has condemned Hamas publicly for years, but claimed that those condemnations are being ignored and that Palestinians are being subjected to “absurd accusations and absurd traps.” She went on to blame Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for policies she said helped support Hamas.

She said she opposed the resolution because it “conflates” pro-Palestinian rallies with support for violence and “I cannot stand with Israel — not the Israeli people, but Israel and its current government” because of her and her families’ experiences. She claimed the resolution constituted support for killing civilians.

Romman went on to acknowledge that antisemitism is on the rise and said she’s “glad” the legislation included language condemning it. She said that “there is no holy land without Jews, Christians and Muslims.”

Romman was also a vocal opponent of Georgia legislation codifying the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.

In January, she described a statement by President Joe Biden commemorating the 100th day the hostages spent in captivity as “beyond cruel” because it didn’t mention the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Prior to President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race, Romman said that she was seeking to defeat former President Donald Trump but wouldn’t commit to supporting Biden until after the DNC, during which she said she was hoping for significant policy changes.

Romman has defended anti-Israel protests on college campuses, including the demonstrators who broke into Hamilton Hall at Columbia University, blaming university administrators for having escalated the situation by calling police.

She reacted similarly when law enforcement was called in to break up an encampment at Emory University, calling the action “unjustifiable” and accusing police of having escalated the situation. She brushed off suggestions in the AJC podcast that the protests involved significant antisemitism, claiming that to make such an accusation was to assert that “it is inherently Jewish to mass starve a bunch of people.”

She has also been critical of the Abraham Accords, claiming that they “got us here” to the war in Gaza and calling them “disastrous.” She argued that the Biden administration should have moved away from Trump administration policies for the Middle East.

In 2014, on a personal Twitter account, Romman tweeted, “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free,” along with the hashtags “#ProPeace #Gaza #Israel,” according to a screenshot obtained by JI. She also argued in posts in 2011 and 2012 that Jews and Zionists are  “completely different,” saying, “Jews are cool. The Zionists suck.”

When she was leader of the Oglethorpe University student government in 2015, the student body passed Israel divestment legislation when she scheduled a meeting to reconsider the legislation after the legislation was tabled. The divestment measure ultimately passed by a significant margin.

Romman also previously served as communications director of CAIR Georgia.

She has called on Democrats to “ban AIPAC funding” in Democratic primaries, accusing the pro-Israel group of racism.

Romman said on X that, with her speech, she was trying to “save the soul of our party and prevent bad actors from using our pain in an ongoing voter suppression campaign.” 

She has distanced herself and the Uncommitted organization from protesters who interrupted a Harris rally earlier this month, as well as the protesters who burned American flags and sprayed pro-Hamas graffiti outside D.C.’s Union Station during Netanyahu’s address to Congress.