Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA), who serves as the House Democratic whip, the No. 2 Democratic leader in the chamber, described the war in Gaza as a “genocide” in an event this week, based on video of the event that has been shared online.

“We each have to continue to have an open heart about how we do this, how we do it effectively, and how we take action in time to make a difference, whether that is stopping the starvation and genocide and destruction of Gaza, or whether that means we are working together to stop the redistricting that is going on, taking away the vote from people in order to retain power,” Clark said in a brief clip from an event that was first reported by Axios. 

Clark spokesperson Joy Lee has said in a statement provided to multiple outlets that Clark’s “position on the war has not changed,” including that she supports a permanent ceasefire, the return of all hostages and an increase of aid to Gaza.

“It should not be controversial to say that Israeli children did not deserve to be kidnapped and murdered by Hamas, nor should it be controversial to say that Palestinian children, who bear no responsibility for Hamas’ atrocities, do not deserve to be killed by war or starvation,” Lee’s statement reads. “A secure future for Israeli and Palestinian children demands a real two-state solution and a permanent end to efforts to deny their rights to exist.”

Clark’s office did not respond to a request for comment seeking further clarity.

Lee told The Boston Globe that Clark’s comments came in response to protesters at the event. The brief clip shared online does not include the context of Clark’s remarks.

Only a small number of far-left and far-right lawmakers have described the situation in Gaza as a genocide, and none who serve in leadership roles in Congress.

Clark was speaking at an event organized by the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a lobbying group of the Quaker movement, which has been heavily critical of Israel and supported efforts in the Senate to block arms sales to Israel.

Clark’s office did not respond to a question about whether she supports efforts to block some or all weapons sales.

The group’s criticism of Israel predates the war in Gaza, and it lobbied in favor of the Iran nuclear deal. It also advocates more broadly against militarization generally, including pushing for shrinking military spending.

Clark has been endorsed by AIPAC and is featured alongside each of the other top House leaders on the group’s PAC website.

With Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), the former Auburn University head football coach, announcing on Tuesday that he’ll forgo a second term in the Senate to instead run for governor of Alabama, chatter is emerging that another Auburn University coach, Bruce Pearl, might follow in Tuberville’s footsteps and make a bid for his Senate seat.

Semafor reported on Tuesday that Pearl’s name is being floated for the seat, but it’s not clear that he is interested. Pearl is Jewish and has become politically active on issues related to Israel and Middle East policy and antisemitism — delivering a keynote address just last week on Capitol Hill at a breakfast celebrating Jewish American Heritage Month.

“Alabama is a Republican stronghold, so the NRSC is confident voters will elect another Republican to continue representing them and championing President Trump’s agenda,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in a statement about Tuberville’s decision, which did not mention Pearl specifically.

In his speech on the Hill last week, Pearl, who coaches Auburn’s men’s basketball team, rejected the idea of a two-state solution.

Pearl argued that a Palestinian state had effectively been “tried” in Gaza, following the Israeli withdrawal from the territory in 2005. “They had an opportunity and they turned it into a terrorist state. We cannot make that same mistake again,” he said.

“There cannot be another Palestinian state,” Pearl said. “We need to practice our faith and we need to put our faith into practice. My Jewish friends, we need to wake up and understand that when we said never again, we meant never again, but it happened again on Oct. 7.”

Pearl said that he supports the position recently articulated by Trump administration officials on Iran — that negotiations are the right first step but that Iran must dismantle its nuclear program.

“I’m glad President [Donald] Trump is taking leadership and having this discussion, and giving them the opportunity, and if they don’t take the opportunity, it’s got to be done for them,” Pearl said.

He pushed back on charges of genocide leveled against Israel, highlighting that the Palestinian population has ballooned since 1948, and said that Holocaust education should be mandatory and that colleges should be teaching the truth about the Middle East. Pearl also condemned countries that have criticized Israel’s conduct in the war.

“We’ve gotta protect ourselves from those people that want to kill us,” Pearl, who does not have Israeli citizenship, said. “And the second thing is this: We’ve got to be mensches. We’ve got to be kinder. We’ve got to be more generous. We’ve got to be the very best versions of ourselves that we possibly can. That’s what we’re simply commanded to do.”

Pearl told his family’s story at the event — his grandfather fled the pogroms to the United States with three siblings, while the rest of his family remained in Europe, where most died in the Holocaust. 

He said he remembers sitting with his crying grandfather watching television coverage of the Six-Day War; Pearl said his grandfather was afraid that Israel would be wiped out overnight.

“He said if Israel was a state, maybe, in 1929, maybe more of his family would have been able to go to Israel,” Pearl said. “And maybe some of his relatives would still be alive. He told me two things that day: Number one, the United States of America saved his life … And the second thing was that if Israel was born sooner, maybe more of my family would still be alive.”

Pearl said that his love for Israel is an intrinsic part of his love of his Jewish faith.

He highlighted connections between the Abrahamic faiths — that Abraham “is the father of all nations, that connects us all” and that Jesus was Jewish.

“The Jewish people are strong. The Jewish people know how to work hard. We’re taught to speak the truth. We’re taught to hold the right values. We’re taught to stand up for injustice. We’re taught to teach it to our children,” Pearl said, describing that spirit as the one that brought him and two other Jewish coaches into the college basketball Final Four this year.

He said he believes the “vast majority of Americans support the Jewish people and support the State of Israel,” and praised Evangelical Christians who support Israel for reasons of faith.

FIRST LOOK – Vanity Fair September issue, “GOLDMAN’S GEEK TRAGEDY: A month after ace (Jewish) programmer Sergey Aleynikov left Goldman Sachs, he was arrested. Exactly what he’d done neither the F.B.I., which interrogated him, nor the jury, which convicted him a year later, seemed to understand. But Goldman had accused him of stealing computer code, and the 41-year-old father of three was sentenced to eight years in federal prison. Investigating Aleynikov’s case, MICHAEL LEWIS holds a second trial” – “[I]n early 2009 [Aleynikov got an offer] to create a trading platform from scratch for a new hedge fund run by a 39-year-old Russian fellow named Misha Malyshev [who was] willing to pay him more than a million dollars a year … He agreed and then told Goldman he was leaving. … Four times in the course of [his final six] weeks he mailed himself source code he was working on. (He’d later be accused of sending himself 32 megabytes of code, but what he sent was essentially the same 8 megabytes of code four times over.) The files contained a lot of open-source code he had worked with, and modified, over the past two years, mingled together with code that wasn’t open source but proprietary to Goldman Sachs. As he would later try and fail to explain to an F.B.I. agent, he hoped to disentangle the one from the other, in case he needed to remind himself how he had done what he had done with the open-source code, in the event he might need to do it again. (more…)