Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser stated he is concerned by remarks made by congressional candidate Melat Kiros, who declined to label the firebombing of a pro-Israel rally in Boulder as antisemitic. Kiros, a self-described democratic socialist, made the comments in a recent interview with 9News.
During the interview, Kiros was asked about the attack on the pro-Israel rally last year, which resulted in one fatality and injured a dozen others. She responded by saying she did not know the perpetrator's intentions. "I don't know what was in the heart of the perpetrator," Kiros said. "All I know is that he went and attacked innocent people because of what they might have believed, and I don't even know what the people that were at that protest believed, too."
Kiros continued, stating that many attendees were likely present to advocate for the return of individuals kidnapped during the October 7 attacks. She characterized the discussion of whether the act was anti-Zionist or antisemitic as a political debate, emphasizing that the loss of innocent life was paramount. "Regardless of what the perpetrator had in mind when he took those lives matters less to me than, you know, our responsibility to making sure that people understand that even in the face of these kinds of disagreements that violence is not the answer," Kiros stated.
Weiser, who is also the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, countered that the perpetrator, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, had been convicted of all charges, including committing a hate crime. "We cannot look at that murder and say anything else happened than a hate crime," Weiser told 9News. He asserted that the judicial system had determined the act to be a hate crime. Weiser referred to the incident as an "antisemitic attack" and expressed sympathy for the victim, 82-year-old Karen Diamond.
Weiser drew a parallel to the Black Lives Matter movement, stating, "Jewish lives matter. Karen Diamond’s life mattered. You don’t put a comma, an 'and' or a 'but' — period. That’s the message." He indicated he had not yet met with Kiros to discuss her statements. Kiros recently won a Democratic primary election, defeating an incumbent representative.
