Embattled Women’s March Co-Leader Tamika Mallory Won’t Say if Israel Has Right to Exist

Tamika Mallory, co-president of the embattled Women’s March, wouldn’t say in an excerpt aired Thursday from an interview with Firing Line’s Margaret Hoover if Israel had a right to exist. She said that “the Palestinians are native to the land,” and that “there are people who have a number of sort of ideologies around why the Jewish people feel this should be their land. I’m not Jewish. So for me to speak to that is not fair.” Later, Mallory, who said “everyone has a right to exist,” stressed that she was “speaking of the people who we know are being brutally oppressed in this moment.” The exchange came after Mallory repeated Tuesday that she would not condemn the remarks of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who she’d previously called “the GOAT,” or greatest of all time, and who has called Jews “termites,” wished death on homosexuals, and praised Adolf Hitler. The Democratic National Committee became the latest group to ends its affiliation with the March—which will hold its third annual event Saturday, after a year in which several local affiliates also separated themselves from the national group. Mallory’s full interview with Hoover will air on PBS stations beginning Friday.