Middle East politics have — mercifully — not taken up much of the oxygen during the Los Angeles mayor’s race, but a recent interview that LA Councilmember Nithya Raman gave to left-wing controversial commentator and Twitch streamer Hasan Piker threatens to thrust the Israel/Palestine issue back into the conversation with just two weeks to go before polls open. 

During the hour-long interview, Piker grilled Raman on a range of local topics before getting to the “elephant in the room” — her position on Israel’s three-year old war against Hamas in Gaza and Lebanon. Raman agreed that Israel had committed “genocide” in its bombing of Gaza, and she also did not dispute Piker’s characterization that Israel was an “apartheid” state. “My work on the city council has changed especially after we have seen the horrors in Gaza. And I feel like I know more although I will confess this is not my area of expertise,” she told Piker. 

When Raman was first elected to the city council in 2020, she had the full throated support of the Democratic Socialists of America, an organization that supports the Palestinian people and has been openly critical of Israel.

But Raman’s relationship with the DSA has since been strained. The local LA chapter of the DSA censured her in 2024 over the endorsement she received from Democrats for Israel when she was seeking reelection (the DSA did not however revoke its endorsement of Raman.)

The latest Emerson College Polling/Inside California Politics poll, released last week, shows current LA mayor Karen Bass leading the field in her re-election bid with 30% support, followed by former reality star Spencer Pratt’s 22% with Raman in third place with 19%.

Some observers speculated over the weekend that Raman’s appearance on Piker’s show was an acknowledgement that her campaign needs to tack further to the left in the final weeks before the June 2 primary to avoid missing the run-off to which only the top two vote getters advance. 

One election topic that has been sucking up much of the oxygen has been the Palisades Fire and the city’s response to the Palisades and Eaton fires. Over the weekend, message groups were buzzing after Google Maps satellite imagery reverted back to an overlay that showed Pacific Palisades and Alta Dena before the fires which removed the burn scars.

A cursory look at the Palisades via Google Maps yesterday did show certain neighborhoods had reverted back to the pre-fire imagery while other neighborhoods’ imagery still showed the burn scars.