DENVER (VINnews) – Melat Kiros, the 29-year-old Democratic Socialist who has described both the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and Hamas’s October 7, 2023 massacre as “inevitable” consequences of U.S. and Israeli policies, won the Democratic primary for Colorado’s 1st Congressional District on Tuesday, defeating 15-term Rep. Diana DeGette.

Kiros captured roughly 49% of the vote in the heavily Democratic Denver seat and is now the strong favorite to win the general election in November.

In a June 22 interview with Denver’s 9NEWS, Kiros stood by her earlier characterization of the Oct. 7 attack — in which Hamas terrorists murdered approximately 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, in a rampage that included mass rape, torture, burning families alive in their homes, and the abduction of 251 hostages — as an “inevitable consequence of apartheid” and decades of occupation.

Pressed on whether the same logic applied to 9/11, Kiros agreed. “Inevitable in the sense that we destabilized a lot of the Middle East,” she said. “That forced people to believe that another act of violence was the only response.”

She rejected the specific claim that Israel “had it coming,” but repeatedly emphasized the need to understand the “conditions” that lead to such violence.

Kiros also endorsed a full arms embargo on Israel that would include defensive systems such as the Iron Dome, which has saved countless Israeli civilian lives by intercepting rockets fired by Hamas and Hezbollah.

When asked about the 2025 firebombing attack in Boulder that targeted a peaceful Jewish gathering calling for the release of Oct. 7 hostages, Kiros declined to describe it as antisemitic.

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

The Boulder attacker, who shouted “Free Palestine,” used Molotov cocktails and an improvised flamethrower against the crowd, injuring 13 people. An 82-year-old woman later died from her wounds. The suspect faces hate crime charges.

Jewish organizations and pro-Israel advocates have expressed serious concern over Kiros’s comments and her primary victory. They view her framing of both 9/11 and Oct. 7 as the predictable result of American and Israeli actions as a dangerous form of victim-blaming that excuses deliberate terrorist massacres of civilians.

The Sept. 11 attacks killed nearly 3,000 Americans. They were carried out by al-Qaeda terrorists driven by radical Islamist ideology that seeks the destruction of the United States and its allies.

The Oct. 7 massacre was the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust. Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization whose charter calls for the killing of Jews, launched the assault from Gaza — territory Israel had fully withdrawn from in 2005. Hamas used the years afterward to construct an extensive tunnel network and stockpile Iranian-supplied weapons for the explicit purpose of attacking Israeli civilians.

Kiros’s call to cut off even defensive weapons to Israel comes as the Jewish state continues to face rocket and terror threats from Hamas remnants, Hezbollah, and Iran.

Her refusal to label the Boulder firebombing as antisemitic has added to the alarm, especially at a time when antisemitic incidents across the United States have reached record levels since Oct. 7.

Kiros, backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, Justice Democrats, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, has made harsh criticism of Israel a centerpiece of her campaign. She has also called for abolishing ICE and other far-left policies.

With Tuesday’s primary win, Kiros is positioned to become one of the most radical voices on Israel in the next Congress — a prospect that has deeply unsettled many in the Jewish community and among supporters of a strong U.S.-Israel alliance.