Sue Altman, a progressive organizer and former top staffer for Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ), who is running for Congress in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District, slammed her anti-Israel primary opponent Adam Hamawy for “cheerleading and wishing for the deaths of Israeli children” with his comments opposing Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system.

Hamawy said last week in an appearance on far-left streamer Hasan Piker’s show that he does not support Iron Dome because it insulates Israel from the consequences of war.

“When we talk about the Iron Dome or any kind of defensive weapons, what it is doing is insulating Israel from having to make decisions to make peace, and it really isolates them from having to deal with the consequences,” Hamawy said. “It’s like giving a bully body armor to go bully people some more. We need to be able to have them feel the effects of war, and then they’ll stop and actually have a conversation.”

He also said that he supports financial sanctions on Israel, asking “what makes it different than Russia or Iran?”

Altman, speaking to Jewish Insider on Monday, pushed back forcefully against Hamawy’s comments.

“Reasonable people can agree that the U.S. doesn’t need to be subsidizing military spending for a prosperous ally. And reasonable people can agree that we should be treating Israel as the same as all other prosperous allies,” Altman said. “But where I draw the line is — and where I feel like progressives need to draw the line is — that we absolutely cannot and should not ever be cheerleading and wishing for the deaths of Israeli children.”

She said that she believed that more Israeli civilian deaths are Hamawy’s goal.

“It is clear that this was a policy end and a policy goal for my opponent, and that is beyond the pale,” she continued. “I have spoken out against atrocities in Gaza, I have spoken out against the settlements in West Bank, and I think it is possible to be aligned in the ways America spends its money to support our allies, but I am disgusted by the very thought of wishing for Israeli civilians to die or be rained upon by missiles aimed at killing them.”

She said that the policy articulated by Hamawy constituted an “encouragement of further conflict and further death,” adding that “the absolute last thing we need in the Middle East is more civilian death.”

“My work is about reconciliation and peace. I build coalitions. I believe in democracy and hope. I am not someone who’s for revenge and death,” Altman said. “I think that the Democratic Party should be better than this. We need to have alignment of U.S. and international law, and treat Israel like we treat other [allies]. But I am not for a politics of revenge and death. I am not for recreating the dark and violent dynamics of the Middle East in our Democratic primaries. Our party is better than this. The people of the 12th deserve better [than] this, and we need long-term peace.”

A Hamawy spokesperson accused Altman of seeking support from pro-Israel groups, though her own positions on the issue have significantly shifted to the left and would likely make her unable to receive their support.

“Dr. Adam Hamawy survived multiple bombings while working in a hospital in Gaza to save the lives of children. He knows the cost of war and opposes all wars. He is seeking to end these wars while Sue Altman is yet again positioning for support from AIPAC and DMFI,” a Hamawy spokesperson said.

Altman, during her 2024 campaign in a neighboring congressional district, took a stronger pro-Israel stance and received an endorsement from Democratic Majority for Israel, but said she’s been pained by what she has seen in the years since then in Gaza and has shifted her own positions.

Altman said she now supports the Block the Bombs Act and conditions on U.S. aid to Israel. But she said she does not support a full arms embargo on Israel and does not support financial sanctions. She said that Israel remains an ally but that she does not support a “blank check” or “unconditional aid” and does not want U.S. taxpayer funding “paying for civilian deaths in the Middle East.”

She said that she wants to “build towards a relationship with Israel like we have with other allies” and to treat Israel “in accordance with international law.” Regarding Iron Dome, she said she’s aligned with J Street and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) that she does not want the U.S. to subsidize Israel’s acquisition of the system, which is jointly produced, but thinks Jerusalem should be allowed to purchase it from the U.S.

“To be very clear: I want the Iron Dome to exist. The U.S. has worked together with Israel to create that system. I think it’s really, really, really important to keeping civilian life safe, and that is crucial for me,” Altman said. “And at the same time, I’m not convinced American taxpayer money needs to be going to a prosperous ally to subsidize that. It seems like they could afford it on their own, even as I very much think it needs to exist.”

Altman sees the Israeli government as a “problem,” and called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a war criminal, but said she wants Israel to continue to exist and feels no ill will toward the Israeli people “and I think making that distinction is crucial.”

“I want to believe in an Israel that is a strong democracy. I want pro-democracy fighters and advocates from Israel to be strong in the state,” Altman said. “And I want there also to be a two-state solution. And maybe that’s a boring old take, but I believe it’s the only way to peace. And I find this entire conversation to be really scary and sad, because I want so desperately for us to have an ally in Israel that we can believe in, but not one that’s causing atrocities and war crimes in Gaza and elsewhere.”

Altman said she has “lost more sleep” about the U.S.-Israel relationship than she has about any other issue in the campaign, saying she previously strongly “admired Israel” but feels that it has “really gotten away from being the democracy they were” and that she has found the developments in Gaza “horrific.”

Asked about Hamawy’s decision to appear on Piker’s stream, she said she wasn’t expecting an invite, and that she “would be very challenging to [Piker]” if she ever was invited on. She said she’s “not surprised” that Hamawy did appear on the show, but “I’m not going to give him campaign advice.”

Altman told JI she has been “disturbed” by antisemitism she has seen in both parties, and that it is “appalling,” condemning it along with Islamophobia. She said she would work to provide additional security assistance to both Jewish and Muslim communities, and that she wants to see hate crimes prosecuted strongly.

Hamawy, who worked for several months in Gaza as a physician during the war, said that the experience was transformative and shaped his approach to his political career, accusing Israel of deliberately targeting civilians rather than targeting Hamas. He called the U.S. “the villain in this whole story.”

“I’m paying for this. I’m paying with my own tax dollars,” Hamawy said on Piker’s stream. “And I come home and people don’t believe what’s happening. I witnessed it with my own eyes. I took care of these children, and I felt guilty that I got to leave.”

He also asserted that nearly all of the patients he saw were civilians and that he had seen no evidence of Hamas using hospitals in Gaza as military facilities.

“I saw no weapons at all, no one that looked at all like a military person. And 99.9% of the people coming in were clearly civilians, unless you want to call any young man who’s 20 years old a combatant, which is not reasonable.”