A congressional letter organized by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) and a delegation of progressive Democrats in Congress was endorsed by organizations that call for Israel’s destruction, promote boycotts of the Jewish state, endorse terrorism, and traffic in anti-Semitic rhetoric.
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— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) December 10, 2018. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), whose dubious claims of Native American ancestry were subject to DNA testing, Ocasio-Cortez’s Jewish claims would be difficult to prove, or to disprove, without a detailed family history. Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a May Twitter message that the Israeli army had committed a “massacre” in Gaza. She wrote that, “No state or entity is absolved of mass shootings of protesters. Malka Simkovich, a Jewish-studies professor and the director of Catholic-Jewish studies at Chicago’s Catholic Theological Union, thinks Ocasio-Cortez allows herself to be heard in certain ways without spelling metaphors out. Ocasio-Cortez told Haaretz that the speech marked the first time she had ever publicly spoken of her family's Jewish roots. In her speech, Ocasio-Cortez credited research for family trees to. Ocasio-Cortez reveals Jewish heritage for Hanukkah. 'The story goes that during the Spanish Inquisition, Jews were forced, on the exterior, to convert to Catholicism, but on the interior they.
The letter, sent Monday to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, threatens to withhold U.S. security assistance to Israel if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moves forward with a plan to annex parts of the disputed West Bank, an act that 'would lay the groundwork for Israel becoming an apartheid state.' In addition to Ocasio-Cortez, the letter was backed by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.).
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In an internal email circulated to House Democrats and obtained by the WashingtonFree Beacon, Ocasio-Cortez lists 10 organizations that support her letter to Pompeo. Most of these groups are prominent leaders of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS), which seeks to wage economic warfare on Israel. One such organization—Defense for Children International – Palestine—has been linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.- and European Union-designated terrorist organization.
Ocasio-Cortez’s collaboration with groups that have traditionally been seen among Democrats as extremist and outside the bounds of collaboration suggests an escalating fight within the party over not just criticism of Israel, but the acceptability among Democrats of supporting the Jewish state’s destruction through BDS and terrorism.
Almost all the 'supporting organizations' listed on Ocasio-Cortez’s letter are vocal supporters of the BDS movement, including the American Friends Service Committee, American Muslims for Palestine, the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, and Churches for Middle East Peace. Each of these advocacy groups has a lengthy history of Israel criticism.
American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), for instance, is a prominent leader of the BDS movement and helps run the leading campus BDS group, Students for Justice in Palestine. Both organizations have promoted conspiracy theories about Israel and endorsed violent Palestinian resistance groups. AMP’s chairman, Hatem Bazian, once called for an 'intifada' in the United States. Several AMP officials were involved with charities the U.S. government shut down for acting as fundraising fronts for Hamas, including the Holy Land Foundation and the Islamic Association for Palestine. AMP’s national policy director, Osama Abuirshaid, is a vocal Hamas supporter on social media and reportedly worked for two Hamas-linked groups in the United States.
Another backer of Ocasio-Cortez’s letter is the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, an umbrella and coordinating body for the BDS movement in the United States. Among the group’s activities, as revealed by Tablet magazine in 2018, is 'help[ing] facilitate tax-exempt donations to a Palestinian coalition that includes Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other groups the U.S. State Department designates as terrorist organizations.'
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Churches for Middle East Peace, another backer, is a signatory to the Kairos Palestine Document, which casts the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in religious terms and declares Israel’s existence 'a sin against God and humanity.'
In a pre-election interview with the National Catholic Reporter, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez cited as of particular importance to her the New Testament tale of Jesus entering the Second Temple and overturning the tables of the moneychangers. While mentioning this very well-known episode is hardly evidence of antipathy toward Jews, it’s worth noting how often it was historically wrapped up with anti-Semitism. Menachem Wecker explains:
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