Democratic primary voters face a clear choice in Denver’s race for the First Congressional District: grant entrenched incumbent U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette a third decade in office, elect a “cannabis queen” whose public brand doesn’t match her business record or choose an upstart who excuses violence against Jews. 

Earlier this month, I reported how CU Regent Wanda James’ “historic” pot shop, Simply Pure Colorado, quietly closed and dissolved — the latest business blemish undercutting her claim to fame. 

DeGette’s other opponent, Melat Kiros, has a different problem. The barista who gave up a legal job plainly lacks the qualifications to replace an incumbent. But that isn’t her biggest liability — nor is her support for Medicare-for-All and dismantling ICE or her backing from the Democratic Socialists of America. 

Kiros’ greatest red flag is her record on antisemitism. 

When asked on 9News whether Israel “had it coming” when Hamas launched the most brutal attack on Jews since the Holocaust, on Oct. 7, 2023, Kiros began by saying “not at all.” Then she said exactly that. 

It’s “about understanding the conditions in which violence and war happens,” she explained. Israel, “accused of apartheid and occupation for decades,” has been able to “resist any kind of change” — and only once Israel becomes “responsive to our demands” can there be “peace building.” 

That’s called justifying terrorism. 

Asked whether 9/11 was “the inevitable consequence of American foreign policy” — America’s fault — she didn’t hedge. “Inevitable in the sense that we destabilized a lot of the Middle East that forced people to believe that another act of violence was the only response,” Kiros said. It’s America’s responsibility, she added, to eliminate “those conditions that lead to violence in the first place.” 

Asked whether she agreed with commentator Hasan Piker that Hamas is a “lesser evil than Israel,” she replied: “No, I don’t.” Kiros campaigned with Piker anyway. 

“That’s somebody not taking ownership,” retired U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Doug Slocum told me on KHOW radio. She blames “conditions Israel brought on themselves,” he said, then retreats to, “Well, not me. Somebody else.” 

When asked whether last year’s firebombing of peaceful Boulder marchers demanding the release of Hamas hostages was antisemitic, Kiros wouldn’t call a spade a spade. 

“I don’t know what was in the heart of the perpetrator,” she dodged. “All I know is that he went and attacked innocent people because of what they might have believed.” 

Pressed again, she doubled down: “I don’t know what his intentions were.” 

Seriously? The attacker, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, pleaded guilty in May to murdering 82-year-old Karen Diamond. He’d doused himself in gasoline and hurled Molotov cocktails into the crowd while yelling “Free Palestine!” 

Soliman claimed his actions had “nothing to do” with Jews because he only targeted a “Zionist group supporting the killings of people” in Palestine. 

All but one Boulder council member condemned the “targeted, antisemitic attack.” Councilwoman Taishya Adams dissented, calling it “anti-Zionist” when the attacker yells “Free Palestine” and burns people he calls “Zionists.” 

This was an attempt to burn Jews in the street. Melat Kiros won’t call it what it is, either. 

To its credit, progressive Colorado Pols put Kiros on blast, calling her refusal to label the firebombing antisemitic “consistent with her objective to carve out an acceptable space for debate over whether Israel should have the right to exist.” 

A few Democrats joined in. State Sen. Julie Gonzales, who’s appeared on the trail with Kiros while challenging U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, said Kiros missed “an opportunity to talk about what it takes to heal… I would have answered differently.” 

State Rep. Yara Zokaie, who endorsed Kiros, was “very disappointed.” The Boulder attack, she told The Colorado Sun, was “obvious” antisemitism “that all leaders should condemn.” Yet she hasn’t withdrawn her endorsement. 

Otherwise, mostly crickets. 

When asked whether she supports continuing US military aid to Israel, Kiros said no — even to purely defensive systems. 

“I believe that our selling of arms to Israel, defensive or offensive, gives them the cover to continue the genocide that’s taking place in Palestine and now the ethnic cleansing… in Lebanon,” she said. 

“Don’t forget that the term genocide was defined by a Jew who survived the Nazi maelstrom back in the 1940s. And it specifically referred to what the Nazi pogrom was with regard to ‘the Jewish question,’” Rabbi Jonathan Hausman, of Massachusetts, said on KHOW — adding Kiros is taking a word and “turning it on its head.” 

The Louis D. Brandeis Center calls the charge that Israel commits genocide a modern manifestation of the medieval blood-libel trope about Jews. 

Slocum, a fighter pilot who’s trained the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), called Kiros’ military comments “illogical.” 

“You have people screaming about how we shouldn’t be allowing or supporting Israel logistically to be able to defend itself. In other words, they want Israel to be vulnerable,” Slocum said, noting the Iron Dome and David’s Sling systems are defensive. “It’s shooting down things coming to kill people in the state of Israel.” 

Let’s be clear: Melat Kiros campaigns with online figures who prefer Hamas to Israel. She won’t call a flagrantly antisemitic attack what it is and wants to strip the Jewish state of American support for its defense. 

This is textbook Jew-hatred. It has no business in Congress. 

Jimmy Sengenberger is an investigative journalist, public speaker and longtime local talk-radio host. Reach Jimmy online at Jimmysengenberger.com or on X (formerly Twitter) @SengCenter.