Hallelujah! Last Thursday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had a good talk with the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, which represents more than 50 Jewish groups. It was a Zoom conversation that focused on anti-Semitism, Holocaust education, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
You can watch here the conversation between AOC and the JCRC’s outgoing CEO Michael Miller, hailed as the first public discussion of the Congresswoman of these topics with a mainstream Jewish group.
“When we talk about establishing peace, centering people’s humanities, protecting people’s rights, it’s not just about the what and the end goal, which often gets a lot of focus,” AOC said. “But I actually think it’s much more about the how and the way that we are coming together and how we interpret that what and how we act in the actions that we take to get to that what — and so what this is really about is that it’s a question, more than anything else, about process.”
“That being said, I think there’s just this one central issue of settlements,” she stressed, “Because if the ‘what,’ if the ‘what’ that has been decided on is two-state, then the action of settlements — it’s not the how to get to that ‘what’ — and so I think that’s a central thing that we need to make sure that we center and that we value Jewish — rather, we value Israeli — we value the safety and the human rights of Israelis, we value the safety and human rights of Palestinians in that process.”
“Just like here in the United States, I don’t believe that children should be detained,” AOC said, perpetuating the lie that’s taken as gospel truth by the left, that Israel arrests Palestinian children. “Starting on those basic principles of human rights, I think we can build a path to peace together.”
No, we probably can’t. But as long as liberal US Jews and AOC are getting along, we won’t make a fuss.
This article previously contained references to the views of the JCRC of of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin, Sonoma, Alameda and Contra Costa Counties which do not necessarily apply to JCRC-NY.