Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is known for her anti-Israel stance, has been meeting for the first time with Jewish leaders in her constituency – 14th congressional district – in New York, Israel Hayom has learned from sources involved in the matter. 

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AOC held several meetings with rabbis and leaders, men and women, belonging to the liberal end of the Jewish community spectrum, with some closely affiliated with J Street. 

Although the exact subject of the meeting is unknown, one of the sources said Ocasio-Cortez mostly listened to what participants had to say and avoided addressing her anti-Israel stance. 

Video: President Isaac Herzog reciting a prayer at Congress. Credit: GPO

AOC is a member of the so-called "Squad," an eight-member group of the most progressive and left-wing members of the United States Congress known for their hostility toward Israel.  However, contrary to her fellow "Squad" members, such as Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, AOC is less vocal about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

She also abstained in the past from voting on funding for Israel's Iron Dome, compared to other "Squad" members who voted against the move. AOC was harshly criticized by the Left for abstaining, after which she said her abstention was a mistake. 

Since breaking into politics in 2018, AOC avoided any kind of contact with Jewish leaders and Israeli representatives. She never before responded to requests to meet nor accepted to be interviewed by local Jewish media. 

Sources estimated the change stemmed from AOC's possible plans to run for a seat on behalf of New York in the Senate in place of Majority Leader of the Senate Chuck Schumer, who currently enjoys the support of most of the city's Jewish communities, including the right-wing Orthodox.

Israel Hayom reached out to AOC's office for comment but received no response. 

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Scapegoating Jews for the problems in a society has always been a central feature of Jew-hatred.

Since well before the German agitator Wilhelm Marr first utilized the phrase "antisemitism" in the late 19th century (to make Jew-hatred sound race-based, scientific and academic), the formula for justifying antisemitism and inciting Jew-hatred has been to find what people hate, fear or are most upset about, and attach it to the Jewish people. Call it the "Jew-hatred incitement formula."

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In the Middle Ages, the Jews were blamed for the spread of the Bubonic Plague. They were accused of poisoning wells and breeding spiders and vermin to spread the disease among non-Jews. This led to ethnic cleansing and widespread attacks against Jews.

In Czarist Russia, deprivation and economic hardship were regularly blamed on Jews, often with deadly consequences. So common was the scapegoating of Jews that between 1880 and 1920, pogroms (riots aimed at massacring Jews) exploded over and over again. And while hard data about the numbers of casualties is hard to come by conservative estimates are that more than 100,000 Jews were murdered during this period, with at least three times as many being wounded.

Hitler and the Nazis took full advantage of the history of antisemitism in Europe, as well as of the Jew-hatred incitement formula, by blaming Jews for the Great Depression, Germany's loss in World War I, the shortcomings of capitalism, and, with no concern for the apparent contradiction, the spread of communism.

Now, in the 21st century, the Holocaust has become distant history for many people, and the Jew-hatred incitement formula is once again being utilized as a political tool by Jew-haters, including, sadly, many members of the US Congress.

Considering also the historic obsession with focusing hate on Israel, the only Jewish country, it should surprise no one that some of these representatives would use this formula to incite hatred of Israel. What should be surprising is that so many of their fellow Democrats have turned a blind eye to the antisemitism coming from members of their own party.

On May 13, in a speech before Congress, Representative Ayanna Pressley compared the Israeli army to "violent white supremacists."

Not the Chinese Army, which rounds up Uyghur Muslims in the dark of night and takes them to slave-labor "re-education" camps. Not the Iranian security police, who literally hang homosexuals. Not the Pakistani army, which regularly beats and oppresses the Baloch people. No other countries were referenced by Pressley as a parallel to the horror and stain of Jim Crow racism – only the one Jewish state is shoehorned into that mendacious comparison.

Perhaps Pressley was inspired by fellow "Squad" member Representative Rashida Tlaib, who just two days earlier, in a speech delivered in front of the State Department decrying Israel's response to Hamas rocket fire, claimed: "What they are doing to the Palestinians is what they are doing to our Black brothers and sisters here."

Who are "they" in this statement? And how is it that Tlaib can claim that the Israeli response to Hamas firing rockets on Israel is connected to the struggles of black people in the United States?

The answer is that no one in the Democratic leadership challenged her effort to attach the one Jewish state to the more than 400 years of racism in America.

Later, on Aug. 1, in a speech at the 2021 Democratic Socialist of America National Convention, Tlaib took her use of the Jew-hatred incitement formula to the next level when she said:

"We also need to recognize, as I think about my family and Palestine that continue to live under military occupation and how that really interacts with this beautiful black city that I grew up in. … [Y]ou know, I always tell people cutting people off from water is violence, from Gaza to Detroit. And it's a way to control people, to oppress people. And it's those structures that we continue to fight against."

It wasn't enough that Tlaib attached legitimate water concerns in Michigan to fraudulent claims about Israel denying water to Palestinian Arabs – she took her speech to the Democratic Socialists yet another step further:

"I know that you all understand the structure that we've been living under right now is designed by those that exploit the rest of us for their own profit. I don't care if it's the issue around global human rights and our fight to free Palestine or to pushing back against those that don't believe in the minimum wage or those that believe that people have a right to healthcare and so much more. And I tell people, those same people, that if you open the curtain and look behind the curtain, it's the same people that make money and, yes, they do, off of racism, off of these broken policies. There is someone there making money, and you saw it!"

Appropriately, Tlaib gave this trope-laden speech in Detroit, where Henry Ford laid the groundwork with his infamous "International Jew" pamphlets, scapegoating Jews and deploying classic antisemitic tropes.

Three days later, on Aug. 4, another Squad member, Cori Bush, took the antisemitic baton from Tlaib, and in a speech before Congress invoked the Jew-hatred incitement formula to blame American aid to Israel for the crime, homelessness and poverty in her hometown of St. Louis. Not the $2 trillion the United States spent in Afghanistan over the past 20 years, including over $90 billion for the now-defunct Afghan Army. Not the $3 billion per year on average that the United States has provided to Egypt and Jordan since 1979. Not the near $35 billion that the United States spent just between 2016 and 2019 on maintaining its military presence in Japan and South Korea. Nor anything else in the annual federal expenditure of over $5 trillion.

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According to Bush, out of the more than $5 trillion per year that the US federal government spends, the only part responsible for the crime, homelessness and poverty in her congressional district is the part that goes toward America's military aid package for Israel.

The irony is that unlike our aid packages to other countries, almost every dime of the US aid package with Israel is spent in the US on American-made products and benefits the United States in numerous other ways, including shared technological innovations. Blaming the less than one-tenth of 1% of the annual budget used in connection with the one Jewish state for domestic problems like homelessness, crime and poverty is a blatant use of the Jew-hatred incitement formula.

As with Pressley's and Tlaib's use of the formula, not a single Democratic leader stepped forward to rebuke, let alone formerly censure or sanction, Bush for her overt antisemitism. Instead, most of the Democratic Party leadership is silent in the face of this incitement to Jew-hatred.

When another Squad member, Representative Ilhan Omar, received well-deserved criticism for her use of antisemitic tropes – her "all about the Benjamins" or multiple "dual loyalty" claims, and her recent comparison of Israel to the Taliban (though she has been remarkably quiet about the Taliban lately) – the Democratic leadership in Congress quickly backed down from any effort to censure Omar for hate speech (in contrast with how the Republican leadership responded to Marjorie Taylor Green's use of antisemitic conspiracy theories).

Even worse, Democratic leaders like Nancy Pelosi actually supported the dangerous deflection promoted by other Squad members like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bush, that people were criticizing Omar because of her gender, faith and ethnicity rather than her inflammatory words.

The math is clear. Not only is there a Jew-hatred incitement formula, but also there is a different formula for how Jew-haters are treated depending on whether their hate speech comes from the perceived left or right.

While David Duke is universally and rightly vilified for his Jew-hatred, Louis Farrakhan's anti-Jewish remarks and conspiracy theories get a pass from many members of Congress and other so-called progressives, who refuse to criticize or distance themselves from him. A Republican congresswoman who promotes dangerous conspiracy theories about the Rothschilds is sanctioned almost immediately, while Squad members continue to get a pass for regularly employing antisemitic tropes and using the age-old Jew-hatred incitement formula to blame Israel and the Jews for problems including unclean water, homelessness, racism in America, police brutality and poverty.

The problem is that whether incitement comes from the left or the right, it always leads to violence against Jews. The political ideology of the person engaging in antisemitism should have no bearing on our response to it. When people believe Jews are the cause of their problems, violence against Jews will follow.

We often hear from many of the same progressives who defend the Squad that "silence is violence" or "silence is complicity." They're right. If only they would take their own words to heart when it comes to their own silence in the face of the consistent use of the Jew-hatred incitement formula. Hopefully, they will do so before the cancer of this incitement spreads any further.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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The congresswoman had been scheduled to take part in the October 20th virtual event, which is being organized by the Americans for Peace Now organization to mark the 25th anniversary of Rabin's assassination. It will be hosted by American Jewish actor Mandy Patinkin.

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After initially agreeing to attend the event, Ocasio-Cortez said her participation was under review, following criticism on social media of Rabin and his legacy.

"So AOC is doing a memorial event for Yitzhak Rabin. In the US Rabin is viewed as a liberal peacemaker but Palestinians remember him for his brutal rule suppressing Palestinian protest during the First Intifada, as someone who reportedly ordered the breaking of Palestinian bones," wrote Alex Kane, a writer at the left-wing +972 Magazine.

Hey there - this event and my involvement was presented to my team differently from how it's now being promoted.

Thanks for pointing it out. Taking a look into this now.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) September 25, 2020

A number of pro-Palestinian groups and figures lambasted Ocasio-Cortez as well for agreeing to attend, describing Rabin as a war criminal for repressing the First Intifada as defense minister from 1987-1990, among other allegations.

The Adalah Justice Project, a Palestinian advocacy group in the US, first tweeted Friday that Ocasio-Cortez had pulled out of the Rabin commemoration.

"His legacy is one of violence and dispossession for Palestinians. Thank you AOC for listening to the lived experience of the Palestinian people," the group wrote on Twitter.

Ocasio-Cortez responded Friday by tweeting that Americans for Peace Now had originally presented the event differently to her staff and that she would reconsider participating.

"Hey there − this event and my involvement was presented to my team differently from how it's now being promoted. Thanks for pointing it out. Taking a look into this now."

Former US ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro responded on Twitter, saying that if Ocasio-Cortez was "getting some bad advice, or undue pressure, to rethink her participation in a Yitzhak Rabin memorial, I hope she will not back down. Honoring Rabin, an Israeli patriot killed for trying to make peace, in no way detracts from a commitment to Palestinians' rights."

If @AOC is getting some bad advice, or undue pressure, to rethink her participation in a Yitzhak Rabin memorial, I hope she will not back down. Honoring Rabin, an Israeli patriot killed for trying to make peace, in no way detracts from a commitment to Palestinians' rights.

— Dan Shapiro (@DanielBShapiro) September 25, 2020

Rabin's granddaughter, Noa Rothman, also decried the US congresswoman's decision via Twitter, noting it was her late grandfather who said one makes peace with enemies, not with friends. "Due to This brave historical act he was assassinated. But off course Populism is easier," Rothman wrote.

After all, it was my late grandfather Itzhak Rabin, who said: You make peace with your enemies- not with your friends. Due to This brave historical act he was assassinated. But off course Populism is easier. @AOC https://t.co/LU9Mg0PTQC

— נעה רוטמן (@noarothman) September 26, 2020

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The "supporting organizations" listed on the letter include ones related to the anti-Israel BDS movement, including the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, American Muslims for Palestine, American Friends Service Committee, Churches for Middle East Peace and Defense for Children International-Palestine.

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The Defense for Children International-Palestine has been linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, designated a terror group by the United States and European Union.

The letter last month to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threatened to condition or even cut off of US assistance to Israel if the Jewish state goes ahead with its plans to apply sovereignty to – or what they call annex – parts of the West Bank, also known as Judea and Samaria.

In addition to Ocasio-Cortez, 12 other members of Congress signed the letter: Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), André Carson (D-Ind.), Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.), Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), Jesús "Chuy" Garcia (D-Ill.), Danny Davis (D-Ill.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

In the letter, the progressive members of Congress, citing unspecified "leading human rights experts," warn that "annexing parts of the West Bank will perpetuate and entrench human rights violations against Palestinians including limitations on freedom of movement, mass expropriation of privately-owned Palestinian land, further expansion of illegal settlements, continued demolitions of Palestinian homes, and a loss of Palestinian control over their natural resources."

The letter accuses Israel of "paving the path toward an apartheid system" since it won't grant citizenship to Palestinians living in annexed territory," despite the Palestinians being under the control of the Palestinian Authority, which has long been known for corruption, human rights abuses, and supporting terrorism against Israelis.

"The US should work to build a future in which all Palestinians and Israelis live under full equality by upholding a foreign policy that centers human rights and dignity for all people," states the letter. "We therefore call on you to use a combination of pressure and incentives to stop Israel's plans to illegally annex the West Bank, which would ensure a worsening of the situation for all Palestinians and Israelis."

The Congress members warn that if Israel were to go ahead with annexation, which the Israeli government has said it will do some time after July 1, "we will work to ensure non-recognition as well as pursue conditions on the $3.8 billion in US military funding to Israel, including human rights conditions and withholding funds for the off-shore procurement of Israeli weapons equal to or exceeding the amount the Israeli government spends annually to fund settlements, as well as the policies and practices that sustain and enable them."

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other pro-Israel groups have pushed back against the letter.

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AIPAC called it "one-sided," saying it "directly threatens the US-Israel relationship," "supports conditioning and cutting America's security assistance commitment to Israel" and "would damage American interests, risk the security of Israel and make a two-state solution less likely."

In response to the Democratic letter, a group of US House Republicans penned a letter this month to Pompeo in support of Israel possibly extending sovereignty to the West Bank.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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The letter has been issued by Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Betty McCollum (D-Minn.).

In the letter, the progressive members of Congress, citing unspecified "leading human rights experts," warn that "annexing parts of the West Bank will perpetuate and entrench human rights violations against Palestinians including limitations on freedom of movement, mass expropriation of privately-owned Palestinian land, further expansion of illegal settlements, continued demolitions of Palestinian homes, and a loss of Palestinian control over their natural resources."

The letter accuses Israel of "paving the path toward an apartheid system" since it won't grant citizenship to Palestinians living in annexed territory," despite the Palestinians being under the control of the Palestinian Authority, known for corruption, human rights abuses and supporting terrorism against Israelis.

"The US should work to build a future in which all Palestinians and Israelis live under full equality by upholding a foreign policy that centers human rights and dignity for all people," states the letter. "We therefore call on you to use a combination of pressure and incentives to stop Israel's plans to illegally annex the West Bank, which would ensure a worsening of the situation for all Palestinians and Israelis."

The lawmakers warned that if Israel were to go ahead with the move, which the Israeli government has said it planned to do some time after July 1, "we will work to ensure non-recognition as well as pursue conditions on the $3.8 billion in US military funding to Israel, including human rights conditions and withholding funds for the off-shore procurement of Israeli weapons equal to or exceeding the amount the Israeli government spends annually to fund settlements, as well as the policies and practices that sustain and enable them."

In an action alert email on Monday, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee called the letter "one-sided" and "directly threatens the US-Israel relationship," "supports conditioning and cutting America's security assistance commitment to Israel" and "would damage American interests, risk the security of Israel and make a two-state solution less likely."

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In a statement, the Democrat said she had reconsidered her decision, as part of the settlement of a federal lawsuit that Hikind had brought against her this year.

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"Mr. Hikind has a First Amendment right to express his views and should not be blocked for them," she said. "In retrospect, it was wrong and improper and does not reflect the values I cherish. I sincerely apologize for blocking Mr. Hikind."

Hikind, a former New York state Assemblyman, said he was blocked from Ocasio-Cortez's @AOC campaign account, which has 5.7 million followers, after he criticized her comments comparing US-Mexico border detention camps to concentration camps.

Hikind was pleased with the representative's comments. "I couldn't ask for much more at this point," he said. "She never apologizes."

According to the New York Post, Hikind on Monday invited the congresswoman to speak personally with Holocaust survivors.

"Let the survivors share with her what a concentration camp means to a survivor of the Holocaust," he said, adding that he hoped it would be the beginning of a dialogue between himself and Ocasio-Cortez.

Hikind had filed his lawsuit on First Amendment grounds this year. It came after a federal appeals panel had said US President Donald Trump couldn't block people who criticized him from his Twitter account.

That panel said the majority of Trump's comments on his account were official and by blocking someone critical of him, he was silencing them and violating the First Amendment.

Ocasio-Cortez uses her Twitter account to engage with people in a number of ways, including on policy.

She said she reserves the right to block people from her account who engage in harassment.

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"I call him 'tio Bernie'," Ocasio-Cortez, 30, said at the rally in her Queens, New York constituency that drew over 25,000 people. "Tio" means "uncle" in Spanish, the language of Puerto Rico where Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest House of Representatives member, has roots.

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"We right now have one of the best Democratic presidential primary fields in a generation, and much of that is thanks to work that Bernie Sanders has done in his entire life," said Ocasio-Cortez, who considers herself a "Democratic socialist," as does Sanders who has been in Congress since 1991.

"I am more than ready, more ready than ever, to carry on with you the epic struggle that we face today," Sanders said when he took the stage.

Ocasio-Cortez joined her fellow first-year congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), another member of the new Democratic guard, in endorsing Sanders.

Omar has been repeatedly criticized for her anti-Israel views and her calls for a boycott of the Jewish state. Just recently, she stirred controversy after she insinuated the pro-Israel lobby in Washington was all but buying votes.

She was also slammed for comparing Israel to Nazi Germany. Omar and Ocasio-Cortez are part of a group of four female Democratic lawmakers nicknamed "The Squad" that has advanced a socialist agenda and has been a prominent critic of Israel, along with fellow "squad" member Rep. Rashida Tlaib from Michigan.

"The only reason that I had any hope in launching a long-shot campaign for Congress is because Bernie Sanders proved that you can run a grassroots campaign and win," Ocasio-Cortez said in her speech.

Sanders, 78, is known for consistently refusing political financing from corporations.

"When I was a waitress, and when it was time for me to graduate college with student debt, Bernie Sanders was one of the only ones that said no person should be graduating with life-crushing debt," Ocasio-Cortez said in an impassioned speech.

The first round of voting to select a Democratic White House nominee will take place in February, in Iowa.

This article was originally published by i24NEWS.

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"The Netanyahu administration has been pursuing a lot of extraordinarily concerning policies," she told reporters. "To conflate an individual leader or ego with being against the entire country I think is a hallmark behavior of folks like our president."

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"Just like we have the ability to criticize our president without being anti-American, I believe we can criticize the policies and decisions that the administration over there is pursuing without being against a country overall," continued the freshman congresswoman. "In fact, I think that what we all are united for is for a peaceful future that is just and economically just, socially just and culturally just that provides for the civil rights and human rights of all people."

"They can no longer use this allegation of anti-Semitism to defend their unjust and inhumane policies that hurt all people," she added. "And frankly, I think it damages the security of all people – Israeli, Palestinian alike. You can't use this cudgel of anti-Semitism to scare people away from pointing that out."

Ocasio-Cortez also said, "We won't stand up for that anymore, and we have to stand up for the peace and security of Israeli and Palestinian people. But frankly, Trump's policies do not advance that and neither do Netanyahu's."

The congresswoman's remarks added to her criticisms of Israel over the past few weeks.

On Aug. 15, in response to Israel barring Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from entering the country due to their support of the anti-Israel BDS movement, Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that members of Congress "are frequently asked to visit Israel to 'see things for ourselves.' But Netanyahu choosing to ban the only 2 Muslim women in Congress from entering tells the US that only [some] Americans are welcome to Israel, not all. Trump is exporting his bigotry &making matters worse."

In late July, Ocasio-Cortez, who voted against an anti-BDS resolution that month in addition to signing onto Omar's pro-BDS resolution, concurred with a New York radio host, saying that what's happening in Israel is "very criminal" and giving a shoutout to the IfNotNow organization.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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"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," asked "Ebro in the Morning" host Ebro Darden.

"I agree. I agree with that," replied Ocasio-Cortez.

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Darden 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."

Ocasio-Cortez told the host that there are "really amazing organizations of young people, like IfNotNow, that they are young Jews organizing for justice because they realize that all of our fates and destinies are intertwined," she said. "There cannot be justice in Israel without [justice] for Palestinians, too," she said.

Ocasio-Cortez recently lent her support for a measure in the House that supports the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.

The freshman congresswoman, who last week voted against a resolution condemning the anti-BDS movement in addition to signing onto Rep. Ilhan Omar's (D-Minn.) pro-BDS resolution, responded, "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."

Ocasio-Cortez, who tweeted last year that Israel was committing "a massacre" in defending itself against Hamas rioters along the Gaza-Israel border, added, "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 then you are anti-Semitic. But it's the furthest thing from the truth … criticizing the occupation doesn't make you anti-Israel, frankly. It doesn't mean you're against the existence of a nation."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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"She should be removed from Congress. She's spreading anti-Semitism, hatred and stupidity," said Mosberg, 93. "The people on the border aren't forced to be there; they go there on their own will. If someone doesn't know the difference, either they're playing stupid or they just don't care."

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The freshman congresswoman has come under fire for saying in an Instagram video a few weeks ago that the United States is "running concentration camps on our southern border," in reference to the Trump administration's policies regarding illegal immigrants.

Last week, Ocasio-Cortez rejected an invitation to tour Auschwitz with Mosberg, who was an inmate of the camp and is the president of the organization From the Depths. In Auschwitz, an estimated 1.1 million people, almost all of them Jews, were killed.

"Her statement is evil," said Mosberg. "It hurts a lot of people. At the concentration camp, we were not free. We were forced there by the Germans who executed and murdered people. There's no way you can compare."

This article was reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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