Troy Jackson apologizes for remarks about Jewish Maine residents’ views of Gaza war
By Patrick Svitek, CNN
(CNN) — Troy Jackson, the Democratic nominee in Maine’s battleground Senate race, apologized on Wednesday for saying it is “unfortunate” that Jewish residents of the state do not like to label the war in Gaza a genocide.
“I believe what’s happening in Gaza is genocide, and I also understand that word carries particular weight for many Jewish families given the Holocaust—the genocide of six million Jews,” Jackson said in a statement. “In trying to acknowledge that, I misspoke and made a generalization about Jewish Mainers’ views that doesn’t reflect what I meant to say.”
Jackson is challenging Republican Sen. Susan Collins in one of the country’s most competitive Senate contests as Democrats seek to flip the chamber. He made the original comments about the war in Gaza during an interview posted Tuesday by a local TV station in Maine.
“It’s unfortunate that there are people here in Maine that don’t like to use that term only because they’re Jewish and what that means to them with the Holocaust,” Jackson told News Center Maine. “It fits that description, and it is [a genocide].”
Jackson, the former president of the Maine state Senate, replaced Graham Platner as the party’s nominee this summer after the progressive politician was accused of rape, which Platner denies. Like Platner, Jackson is a vocal critic of the Israeli government, and he has called for cutting off US military funding to Israel.
In the local TV interview, Jackson said the United States should stop sending “blank checks” to the Israeli government.
More than 70,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Israel has denied genocide accusations, including from a UN commission, over its military actions in Gaza following Hamas’ 2023 attack on Israel, where militants killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages.
“Senseless murders, horrific murders, are happening to both sides and that has to stop,” Jackson told the outlet.
Jackson is among a handful of outspoken Israel critics who have emerged as Democratic nominees in key Senate races this election cycle, testing the party’s relationship with the Jewish community.
Abdul El-Sayed has taken similar positions as Jackson in the Michigan Senate race, where he won a hotly contested primary after facing tens of millions of dollars in spending linked to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
AIPAC supports Collins in the Maine Senate race.
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