Former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is insulting American voters by trying to blame Moscow for a wave of pro-Palestinian protests across the country, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday.
The senior Democrat has linked pro-Palestinian protests in the US with alleged foreign influence on multiple occasions, most recently in an interview with Irish public broadcaster Raidio Teilifis Eireann (RTE) this week. Pelosi also took issue with the ‘Genocide Joe’ nickname that US President Joe Biden has been branded with over his failure to pressure Israel into showing more restraint in its military campaign in Gaza.
Pelosi acknowledged that pro-Palestinian sentiment could impact Biden’s support during the US presidential vote in November, and claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted the presumptive Republican candidate, Donald Trump, to be elected.
“It’s in Putin’s interest for – what’s his name? – to win. And therefore I see some encouragement on the part of the Russians of some of what is going on,” she alleged of the demonstrations. Pro-Palestinian activists are genuine in their feelings, she conceded, but “some of it has a Russian tinge to it.”
Responding to Pelosi’s remarks in a social media post, Zakharova said they “can only be taken as an insult to the Americans and a disregard for democracy.”
In January, the former House speaker called on the FBI to investigate the financing of pro-Palestinian groups, claiming that their demands for a ceasefire in Gaza were “Putin’s message.” Pelosi was also caught on camera lashing out at hecklers outside her home, telling them to “go back to China,” supposedly where their “headquarters” were located.
Biden’s approval ratings have taken a hit among Democratic voters over his pro-Israeli stance, although Pelosi insisted that the president has been “the biggest advocate for humanitarian assistance to Palestinians” amid the conflict in Gaza. “The groups outside with their protest lay some blame at his doorstep, when he is the only one advocating at that level,” she added.
This week, local authorities across the US used force to disperse pro-Palestinian rallies at university campuses, with mass arrests reported in some cases. Protesters were targeted at Yale, Harvard, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Southern California, and other institutions.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has welcomed the US crackdown, branding the activists “anti-Semitic mobs” and comparing them to Nazi sympathizers in the 1930s.
Putin has publicly stated that he would be more comfortable with “predictable” and “old-school” Biden than Trump as the next US president.