Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump try to shut down criticism of Israel with accusations of anti-Semitism.
During a radio interview with Ibrahim ‘Ebro’ Darden on New York station Hot 97 FM, Ocasio-Cortez said: “The Right wants to advance this notion that if you engage and critique an Israeli policy you are anti-Semitic, but it’s the furthest thing from the truth.”
Criticising the occupation doesn’t make you anti-Israel, frankly. It doesn’t mean that you are against the existence of a nation.
“It means that you believe in human rights, and it’s about making sure that Palestinian human rights are equal to Israeli human rights, and there are a lot of troubling things happening there.”
The radio host referred to the occupation of Palestine as ”criminal” and ”unjust”, to which Ocasio-Cortez agreed, and said she didn’t believe that the marginalisation of Palestinians created safety for Jewish people.
She went on to say: “I believe that injustice is a threat to the safety of all people, because once you have a group that is marginalised and marginalised and marginalised — once someone doesn’t have access to clean water, they have no choice but to riot, right? And it doesn’t have to be that way.”
Present also was Radio DJ Peter Rosenberg, who is himself Jewish.
He commented: “What bothers me, AOC [Ocasio-Cortez], is that I resent so much the way Israel and Jews get thrown around as like a card.”
“What offended me was when [Donald Trump] said ‘they don’t like Jews, they’re anti-Semites’.”
“Why are we the group that they have to use to weaponise, and why does the Right want to defend us?”
“It’s very uncomfortable because you can’t talk about this issue without appearing anti-Semitic.”
This comes as Trump, earlier this week, said Ocasio-Cortez was amongst three other congresswoman who made “Israel feel abandoned by the US”.
