Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez agreed with a New York radio host who said that what’s going on in Israel is “very criminal” on Tuesday.
Ocasio-Cortez appeared on Ebro In The Morning and discussed the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Now you look around the globe and you have multiple corrupt governments working together — you’ve got Israel, you’ve got America, you’ve got Russia, you’ve got the Saudis, right — all working in concert. And I bring up Israel because you’ve been vocal about Palestine, the occupation and what needs to go on there. And specifically, I even think people in Israel are trying to get Netanyahu as well,” the host said.
“I agree, I agree with that,” Ocasio-Cortez responded.
The host continued, “There’s a lot of young Jewish people that I know that are absolutely against the occupation and I wanted you, because often on this program, we have the freedom to address the fact that something that you know people, it’s an oxymoron, how do you have white supremacist Jews? How do you have people like Stephen Miller? How do you have these individuals who are legit aligning with racism and white supremacy, but they’re Jewish and it’s something that most people can’t wrap their brains around. But it’s a real thing and what’s going on with Israel and Palestine, while it’s very deep, it is very, very criminal. It is very, very unjust.”
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“Absolutely, and I think to where we’re at as a country when it comes to Israel-Palestine is very much a generational thing. I think that when we start looking at it through that lens, a lot of this stuff starts to make sense. It’s like what you’re talking about, young Jews in Israel are sick of this.”
The freshman congresswoman went on to compare the Netanyahu and Trump administrations.
“There’s this idea that if you criticize a policy of Israel, the Right wants to advance this notion that if you engage in critique of Israeli policy that you are anti-Semitic. But it’s the furthest thing from the truth,” she continued, before adding that “criticizing the occupation doesn’t make you anti-Israel, frankly. It doesn’t mean you’re against the existence of a nation.”
Ocasio-Cortez has long been a critic of Israel. Almost exactly a year ago, Ocasio-Cortez referred to Israel as “the occupation of Palestine,” in an interview with Margaret Hoover on PBS’s Firing Line. When pressed on the characterization, the congresswoman retreated and said she’s “not the expert in geopolitics on this issue.”
