WASHINGTON -- Jonathan Tasini, the antiwar candidate mounting a Democratic primary challenge against Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, said this week that Israel had “committed many acts of brutality and violations of human rights and torture.”

Mr. Tasini made the comments in a wide-ranging interview with a political blog, the Room 8, after he was asked if he believed Israel was a terrorist state, according to an audiotape posted Monday on the Web site, www.r8ny.com.


Jonathan Tasini, wearing tie, at a rally of the New York City Veterans for Progressive Change in City Hall Park in Manhattan on Tuesday.
“It’s painful to say that, but when you fire missiles from sophisticated aircraft on unarmed civilians in Gaza, those are again, the definition to me of ... ,” he said, pausing to find the right words.

“Terrorism is a very heavily laden word,” he continued. “But to me, what the key thing is, what are you doing? Are your actions in violation of the international norms of the Geneva Convention, and so on? And I think it’s sad to say, but it’s clear, yeah.”

Mr. Tasini spoke at an extremely sensitive moment, with the Israeli military pounding southern Lebanon from the air and ground, and the Hezbollah militia firing rockets on northern Israel.

His comments, in turn, drew swift and sharp criticism from the Clinton campaign, as well as a representative of at least one major Jewish organization. “It’s outrageous, offensive and beyond the pale,” said Howard Wolfson, a Clinton spokesman.

In a telephone interview from Israel, Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations called Mr. Tasini’s comments “stunning.”

Saying that he had witnessed firsthand the devastation wrought by Hezbollah rocket fire on places like Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city, he argued that Israel had an obligation to defend its citizens against an enemy that packs “missiles with shrapnel and ball bearings to maximize the horrendous damage to individuals.”

Mr. Hoenlein said of Mr. Tasini, “His ignorance is appalling.”

In an interview late Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Tasini acknowledged that he had touched a “third rail of New York politics,” apparently referring to the fact that Jewish voters can be crucial to the outcome of an election.

But he said that his comments were being misconstrued and insisted that he never claimed that Israel was a “terrorist state.”

At the same time, he refused to back away from his criticism of Israeli policy.

“I have been critical of Israeli conduct in the occupied territories — Gaza and the West Bank — and in the current conflict, in the same way that I have been absolutely critical of Hezbollah,” he said.

Mrs. Clinton has run into problems of her own on the subject of Israel. During her 2000 Senate campaign, she was criticized for supporting a Palestinian state before that proposal became United States policy, and for kissing Yasir Arafat’s wife, Suha.