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Chicago Alderman Raymond Lopez blindly defends Israel at expense of truth
Once a champion of the victims of racism, defending Arab American and Muslim store owners against the discriminatory policies of former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Chicago Ald. Raymond Lopez has since flipped, replacing morality with political exploitation, blindly defending Israel’s government violence in Gaza to score points in the Chicago City Council. This column first appeared at Hanania.com.
By Ray Hanania
The War in Gaza is politicized. Facts don’t matter anymore.
But here are two facts being suppressed, twisted and distorted:
Hamas is a terrorist organization. It killed 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023.
Benjamin Netanyahu heads a terrorist government responsible for killing tens of thousands of Palestinians, Christian and Muslim, in his two decades reign as Israeli Prime Minister, including more than 60,000 massacred in Gaza since Oct. 7. Click to view video of devastation of Gaza.
The tragedy is that people can’t see these truths because the conflict is politicized. And the politicizing of the conflict is dividing many people who might otherwise be reasoned and empathetic. Hamas was the product of an Israeli policy in the 1970s intended to undermine Palestinian independence. Click here to read more.
One campaign to exploit the horrendous conflict is being led by Chicago Alderman Ray Lopez, who began his career by defending Arabs and Muslims against racism by Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Click here for more info.
But when he didn’t get the support he needed for his political ambitions, he turned to pro-Israel activists who sent him on a trip to Israel to support his election ambitions.
Lopez has led the fight against anyone who dares to call for an end to the violence in Gaza or who criticizes Israel’s government actions.
Last week, he accused Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Aldermen Rossanna Rodriguez-Sanchez (33rd) and Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th) of engaging in “anti-Semitic” and “anti-Jewish hate speech” because they criticize Israel’s killings of Palestinian civilians.
Lopez falsely asserts that Johnson, Rodriguez-Sanchez and Sigcho-Lopez have “rallied alongside pro-Hamas activist groups” in Chicago. But opposing war and violence is NOT the same as “supporting Hamas.” In fact, it is just the opposite.
Apparently, Ray Lopez thinks anyone who criticizes Netanyahu or Israel’s government is a “Hamas” supporter.
Mayor Johnson, Rodriguez-Sanchez and Sigcho-Lopez are being targeted because they successfully passed a resolution in January 2024 urging a Gaza ceasefire to prevent more killings. Click here for more info.
Ray Lopez opposed it, supporting Israel’s government spin that anyone killed in Gaza is a “Hamas” militant or Hamas “family members.” Click here for more info.
UNICEF says 50,000 children have been killed or injured by Israel’s military. Click here for more info.
In January 2025, the French Mission to the UN reported more than 15,000 children were killed. Click here for more info.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for what critics call Netanyahu’s “Genocide.” Click here for more info.
How do you oppose an end to war (ceasefire)? How do you not support ending the ongoing massacre of tens of thousands of women and children? Opposing the ceasefire is supporting war.
In the past 19 months, Israel has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, the majority of them women and children. Israel has destroyed more than 80 percent of all homes, businesses, schools, churches, mosques, and hospitals in Gaza. Intentionally.
If you condemn violence by Hamas, you must also condemn violence by Israel’s government. You can’t paint those who denounce Israel’s government as being “anti-Semitic” or being “supporters of Hamas.”
Truth is being manipulated. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Israel has killed more than 179 independent journalists covering the Gaza war, including several Americans. Click here for more information.
Israeli violence is documented in thousands of videos on social media by independent journalists. Facebook and Twitter censor and delete them. The mainstream news media is bullied into silence by the weaponizing of the “anti-Semitism” label.
Someone says Israel killed women and children and instead of denying it, you just call them “anti-Semitic,” which is what Ray Lopez is doing.
It’s truly disappointing to hear Ray Lopez embrace Israel’s manufactured lies, while closing his eyes to the unprecedented human suffering of nearly 1.9 million civilians who have been forced from their homes and live in tents with no food, water or medical support.
That’s the definition of hypocrisy. Exaggerate suffering on one side, and ignore suffering on the other.
The mainstream national news media are complicit with national politicians who emphasize Hamas’ violent acts of terrorism while ignoring or minimizing Israel’s violent acts of terrorism.
But Chicago Mayor Johnson, and Aldermen Rossanna Rodriguez-Sanchez (33rd) and Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th) see through the lies, the slander, the mudslinging by Israel’s right-wing fanatic government — remember, Netanyahu is not the moral person either, and he is undermining Israel’s moral standing in this world. Many Jews and Israelis, and supporters of Israel see that he is a threat. But, apparently, Ray Lopez can’t see that through the cloud of his political ambitions.
Exploiting the confusion over the Middle East, Ray Lopez has even asserted that the suspect who killed Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim in the horrific terrorist attack on the Israeli Embassy on May 21 in Washington D.C., Elias Rodriguez of Albany Park, was “a murdering terrorist” who was “involved” and politically linked to Rodriguez-Sanchez. Click here for more info. Click here for an aide being misidentified.
Ray Lopez wants you to think he is being moral. But he’s not. It’s all about his political ambitions, and his cushy trip he took to Israel. And probably far more.
Israel’s lobbyists are buying American political support by donating hundreds of millions of dollars to campaigns to elect people at the local municipal, state level, and national levels to Congress. Click here to read more.
A moral person is someone who condemns the violence by extremists on both sides, not closing their eyes to it because it might benefit their pathetic, going-nowhere political ambitions.
The courage to do and say what is right by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Aldermen Rossanna Rodriguez-Sanchez (33rd) and Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th) is in such contrast to the politically exploitive, self-serving lies Alderman Raymond Lopez is shamefully parrotting from his new powerful pals.
Some politicians will do anything to get that money because in today’s American politics, the most important factor in an American election isn’t your vote, but the almighty dollar.
One dollar has more power than one vote in America! The ability of foreign countries and their lobbies, and these secretive Political Action Committees (PACs) to influence election results by pouring money into the elections is a sickness that is corrupting the American electoral system.
That needs to change. But most politicians, who are receiving massive donations from PACs and lobbies, won’t change it.
Ray Hanania is an award-winning former Chicago City Hall reporter who has lived in Orland Park since 1986. He writes for many suburban Chicagoland newspapers including The Regional News, and is the Senior US Correspondent for Arab News Newspaper, the leading English Language newspaper in the Middle East. For more information on this and other topics, or to get information on subscribing to his columns and video podcasts below, visit his website at hanania.com. You can Email Ray at [email protected].
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Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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