Well, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) is at it again. The New York Representative declared that children are being put in cages by Israelis in the West Bank. She also said that the media is censoring Palestinian concerns.
AOC was in Austin, Texas to raise support for progressive House candidates Greg Casar and Jessica Cisneros at an Austin Democratic Socialists of America event. She was heckled by a pro-Palestinian protester while she was promoting the Green New Deal. That caused her to say that Palestine is now a banned word and is being censored. She thanked the protester for bringing it up because she said we shouldn’t have to “tiptoe” around it. She said we should not allow people’s humanity to be censored.
Then, AOC went after charges of antisemitism that have been leveled against some of her friends in Congress like Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. Ocasio-Cortez said that believing in basic human dignity does not mean that you are bigoted. She added that thinking a person should not be jailed or beaten for who they are does not mean you are against any other people group. She said that we should be able to call things for what they are.
Then, AOC went after it. She compared the treatment of Palestinians by Israelis in the West Bank to how migrants are treated at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“I don’t believe that a child should be in a cage on our border and I don’t believe a child should be in a cage in the West Bank,” AOC said.
The problem is that she did not provide any examples of children being locked in cages in the West Bank.
The New York Representative went even further. She said that people in America are afraid to stand up to the incarceration of children in Palestine because it would force them to confront the incarceration of children right at our border. She said these words from the House floor on May 14.
This came after Israel built a controversial wall in the West Bank they said was necessary for security. They encouraged their citizens to settle on both sides of the wall.
The area in question was experiencing some of the worst violence since 2014. President Joe Biden said that Israel had a right to defend itself. But AOC asked if Palestinians had a right to survive.
Ocasio-Cortez was criticized for her claims regarding the Jewish state. The American Jewish Committee came back at AOC with this tweet, “@AOC, you know as well as we do that there are no Palestinian children ‘in cages’ in the West Bank. This kind of gross misinformation hurts chances for reasonable discussion and furthers harmful biases. You must apologize for these baseless allegations.”
The Simon Wiesenthal Center had a similar response, criticizing AOC for demonizing Jews when there is so much antisemitism in New York City. They challenged the Representative to prove her allegations or apologize. They said that she was legitimizing hatred against Jewish people all over the world.
And the Israel War Room tweeted that Israel does not have children in cages in the West Bank. They called AOC’s words “vicious libel,” and this kind of talk has plagued Jewish civilization for centuries.
President Biden joined in criticizing Israel last fall, condemning their West Bank settlements. Ned Price, Biden’s State Department spokesperson said that the U.S. government will oppose Israeli expansion. The words from the White House are the strongest criticism of Israel from America in years.
The chances of AOC proving her allegations are slim, but the chances of her apologizing are probably even less.
