Karen Attiah of the Washington Post. Photo: YouTube screenshot

An event celebrating anti-Israel writer Peter Beinart’s new book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning, went off the rails on Monday night after a woman confronted the moderator, Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah, for her social media posts made in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.

On Monday night, a packed room of attendees huddled inside the Politics & Prose bookstore in northwest Washington, DC to listen to the duo chat about Beinart’s book, which details his thoughts about the ongoing war in Gaza and its impact on the American Jewish community. During the question-and-answer session following the discussion, Nyah Molineaux, an employee of the DC Department of Health, repudiated Attiah for liking a social media post which minimized Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities in Israel. 

“I want to ask you a question,” Molineaux said. “How do you correspond or reconcile your Christianity when on October the 7th you [liked a retweet] that said, ‘What do you think decolonization meant? Vibes? Papers? Essays? Losers.’ You liked that retweet!” Molineaux yelled. 

On Oct. 7, 2023, immediately following the slaughter of 1,200 people in southern Israel and abduction of 251 hostages, Attiah incited outrage after sharing a series of posts seemingly justifying the terrorist attacks. She reposted a tweet that stated, “Settlers are not the victims here and never will be.” On Oct. 8, the journalist also posted tweets defending the utility of “armed struggle” against oppression. 

I just got out of the Peter Beinart/Karen Attiah anti-Israel book event in DC. A woman confronted Attiah for retweeting a post supporting the Oct. 7 attacks. Attiah said she does not regret it and blamed racism for the backlash, though the woman screaming at her was also black pic.twitter.com/MjkeS0dv5v

— Corey Walker (@CoreyWriting) February 25, 2025

The scene quickly descended into chaos as Attiah tried and failed to interject. 

“I can answer your question,” Attiah said.

“No, no, no. I will explain to you what happened, so we can be very clear,” Molineaux continued, before referencing the systematic sexual violence perpetrated against Israeli women and girls by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists during their Oct. 7 rampage.

“Rape happened,” Molineaux said. “How do you reconcile that with rape? How the hell do you reconcile that with a woman being raped? She was Shani Louk. Her body was taken apart. Is rape OK with you?”

“OK, that’s enough,” Attiah retorted, trying to deescalate the scene. 

“No, rape is OK with you, you damn jihadi. It is OK with you to rape a Jewish woman,” Molineaux added. 

A visibly uncomfortable Attiah requested the employees of the bookstore mute Molineaux’s microphone. An employee from the bookstore intervened and requested that the irate Molineaux leave the venue. 

While being escorted out, Molineaux called Attiah a “terrorist” and a “coward” and said she deserves “every goddamn thing that happens to you.”

“You’re a jihadi, and you’re a f—king terrorist. That’s who the f—k you are. The state of Israel will stand, and if you want to f—king play around and play like Bin Laden, you will be treated as such,” Molineaux added. 

Following the explosive confrontation, Attiah clarified that she has “no apologies” for her anti-Israel commentary following the Oct. 7 massacre and suggested that her critics harbor anti-black racial bias. 

Attiah said she hoped the incident would serve as “an example of how violent the social media discourse is” regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, “particularly if you are black.”

The Washington Post columnist did not mention that Molineaux was also black. 

Beinart, the featured guest, silently grinned while sitting next to Attiah.

Earlier in the evening, Beinart, one of the most prominent critics of Israel in the West, suggested that the Jewish state might be committing a “genocide” in Gaza as revenge for the Oct. 7 slaughters. Although he clarified that he does not support the mass murder of Israelis that occurred, Beinart suggested that the Jewish state’s alleged record of anti-Palestinian oppression incited it.

The left-wing intellectual also asserted, without evidence, that the recognized death toll in Gaza is “far too low,” and that Israel has caused a famine in the war-torn enclave. He also unfavorably compared the Jewish state to apartheid South Africa, arguing that Israelis speak about Palestinians comparably to how Afrikaners spoke about black people.

On Tuesday, Beinart appeared to attack The Algemeiner on social media for covering the event and posting video from it, falsely accusing the publication without evidence of following the extremist movement of Kahanism.

At my book event last night, a Kahanite publication tried to create the impression that I justify Oct 7, even though I condemn it at length in my book. What they left out of their video is me condemning Oct 7 in that very exchange, as I have literally thousands of times.

— Peter Beinart (@PeterBeinart) February 25, 2025

As for Attiah, over the past 16 months she has launched an unrelenting barrage of criticism opposing Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. Attiah criticized 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris for adopting what she described as a pro-Israel stance during her campaign. The journalist also accused Israel of implementing “permanent occupation and apartheid” against the Palestinians and stated that it is “justified, moral, and necessary to be outraged at Israel’s behavior.”

Although Molineaux told The Algemeiner she is not Jewish, she said she felt inspired to defend Israel because she has Jewish first cousins. Molineaux also defended calling Attiah a “jihadist,” arguing that the Washington Post columnist has displayed hypocrisy by sympathizing with Hamas while simultaneously condemning extremist movements within Africa.

“As a Black woman it is abhorrent to me she is saying she is against Boko Haram in Nigeria but for Hamas in Israel. A jihadist is a jihadist,” Molineaux said.