A socialist California mayor who praised Hamas and made numerous antisemitic posts make make amends for his nasty rhetoric or resign, 80 local elected officials and community letters have demanded.
Richmond Mayor Eduardo Martinez is facing new pressure after officials from across the Bay Area issued a “Unity Letter” demanding that he meet privately with Jewish leaders, publicly apologize and affirm that antisemitism has no place in his community.
If he won’t do that, he must resign, the letter demanded.
The mayors of Walnut Creek, El Cerrito, Moraga and Brentwood — along with numerous city council members from the Bay Area and other officials signed the letter.
The Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area has already demanded that Martinez — who leads a city of 116,000 people in Contra Costa County — step down over his comments.
The Richmond city council voted last week not to censure Martinez despite widespread outrage. He got off without a reprimand in a 5-2 censure vote.
The Martinez hasn’t responded to the letter and calls to his office went unreturned.
Martinez sported a red hat emblazoned with “Death Death to the IDF” and spewed antisemitic rhetoric at a pro-Palestinian conference last year — that also gave a microphone to a well-known terrorist.
He also came under fire for sharing conspiracy theories about the Bondi Beach terror attack and has a disturbing, documented history of hate.
The proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) opened the Detroit conference in August and drew tremendous applause when he explicitly justified Hamas’ savage terror attack on Israel that killed over 1,200 people on Oct. 7, 2023.
“If Palestine were a schoolyard playground, I would be a Palestinian. And that part of me, that part of me that couldn’t endure the abuse anymore, would be Hamas,” according to The Jewish News of Northern California.
The mayor, who is up for reelection this year, took down his posts and apologized on social media.
“I want to apologize for sharing my previous posts without thinking,” he posted.
“Of course we know that antisemitism was here before the creation of the state of Israel. As I’ve said many times before, we should not conflate Zionism with Judaism. They are two separate beliefs.”
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