Outrage from pro-Israel and Jewish groups is growing against US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) for her remarks on Monday via her Instagram account that the United States is "running concentration camps on our southern border," in reference to the Trump administration's policies regarding illegal immigration.
In her social media remarks, the freshman congresswoman said, "The fact that concentrations camps are now an institutionalized practice in the Home of the Free is extraordinarily disturbing. … We are losing to an authoritarian and fascist presidency. I don't use those words lightly. … I use that word because that is what an administration that creates concentration camps is. A presidency that creates concentration camps is fascist, and it's very difficult to say that."
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On Tuesday, she posted on Twitter, "This administration has established concentration camps on the southern border of the United States for immigrants, where they are being brutalized with dehumanizing conditions and dying."
In a hit against Republicans, Ocasio-Cortez added: "And for the shrieking Republicans who don't know the difference: concentration camps are not the same as death camps. Concentration camps are considered by experts as 'the mass detention of civilians without trial.' And that's exactly what this administration is doing."
Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) responded to Ocasio-Cortez by tweeting: "Please @AOC do us all a favor and spend just a few minutes learning some actual history. 6 million Jews were exterminated in the Holocaust. You demean their memory and disgrace yourself with comments like this."
Cheney later added, "Happy to help educate you @AOC. You could start with the @yadvashem survivor testimonies. I also recommend Night by Elie Wiesel. Here's an Amazon link to make it easy for you to purchase."
Several other pro-Israel and Jewish groups condemned Ocasio-Cortez's remarks.
"Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. It is disgraceful for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to compare our nation's immigration policies to the horrors carried out by the Nazis. We would hope that Rep. Ocasio-Cortez knows better, but sadly, she does not," said the Republican Jewish Coalition on Tuesday.
"Before Representative Ocasio-Cortez makes a statement like that, I would suggest that she actually visit Auschwitz, and try to understand what actually took place there," Endowment for Middle East Truth founder and president Sarah Stern told JNS. "Her statement devalued the horrors of the Holocaust and of the 6 million who were systematically and purposely murdered. Statements such as these are ill-informed and flippant, and simply illustrate her vast ignorance."
"AOC should ask Holocaust survivors and ex-GIs who liberated Dachau what that charnel House was like," Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told JNS. "She is insulting victims of genocide."
