Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a third-generation Bronxite, educator, and organizer serving the 14th district of New York in the Bronx and Queens. Ocasio-Cortez grew up experiencing the reality of New York’s rising income inequality, inspiring her to organize her community and run for office on a progressive platform with a.
Miss Ocasio-Cortez regrets she’s unable to PeaceNow today. Evoking Cole Porter’s “Miss Otis Regrets,” Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just let it be known that she will be a no-show at the event at which Americans for Peace Now will commemorate the martyred Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.
The progressive avatar faced a small Twitterati chorus castigating her for agreeing to grace the memorial event with her presence. On Twitter — where else? — Ms. Ocasio-Cortez vowed to reexamine the issue, which initially she evidently knew too little about.
- In February, Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) unveiled plans for the Green New Deal, proposed legislation that aims to address both climate and economic inequality in the U.S.
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is an American Democratic Socialist who made headlines in 2018 when, at the age of 28, she beat out a 10-term New York Democrat incumbent in a congressional primary.
On Friday she responded to a Twitter tirade by Alex Kane, a freelance journalist and contributor to the leftist magazine Jewish Currents. Here’s the first tweet:
“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.”
And here is AOC’s answer:
“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.”
Wait, so the organizers of an event honoring a former General, who was assassinated because of tireless, though unsuccessful pursuit of ending a century-long war, forgot to mention his “brutal rule”? Well, by all means, let’s take another look.
On Saturday a spokesperson for Ms. Ocasio- Cortez, a member in good standing of the august House of Representatives, heeded a tweet of a self-described observer of “Israel/Palestine” and “civil liberties.” And just like that, Rabin was cancelled.
Now, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez surely considers Mr. Kane, though not an Arab himself, as the best interpreter of what's in Palestinian “memory,” but here’s one Palestinian’s view:
“I would like to congratulate my partners in peace Mr. Yitzhak Rabin, the Prime Minister of Israel, and Mr. Shimon Peres, the Israeli Foreign Minister on being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.” That was Yasser Arafat, speaking at Oslo in 1994, when academy Swedes recognized him for a process known as the Oslo Accords.
Arafat often referred to Rabin as “my brother.” His successor at the presidency of the Palestinian Aurthority, Mahmoud Abbas, often invokes the 1995 assassination of the Israeli prime minister as the moment the peace process died. Other top Palestinian leaders speak with nostalgia of the Rabin days.
These quotes, albeit not on Twitter, show that Mr. Kane is far from the only authority on Palestinian feelings toward Rabin. These leaders and many others in the West Bank (and, once upon a time, in Gaza as well) often cite Rabin as “the good Israeli.” They cite the former general — right or wrong — as a man who turned away from war to diplomacy and peacemaking.
Unlike fellow “quad” members Congresswoman Rashida Talib, a Palestinian-American, or Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who are obsessed, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez shows little interest in Mideast issues. She doesn’t know much about it beyond “Palestine good/Israel bad.”
No wonder she turns to Twitter, the platform that made her famous and a Democratic Party rising star, for wisdom. Even a cursory Google search, could have informed her better than one tweet about how most American progressives — and numerous Midesatern Arabs — see Rabin.
It’s tempting to suggest that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s snub of a progressive Jewish group (and a slap in the face to quite a few members of her Queens constituency) is but a blip on today’s politics. It may be more prudent, though, to see it as a harbinger of how the Democratic Party is being tugged ever leftward by the wing of the party of which AOC is the head.
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After fretting about whether she'd be able to afford rent, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) has moved into a luxury apartment building in the District of Columbia's Navy Yard neighborhood, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.
Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, got a big raise with her election to Congress, a job that comes with a $174,000 annual salary. She told the New York Times she was concerned about how she would get an apartment before that salary kicked in.
She ended up moving into a luxury apartment building with a wide array of amenities where rent for even a studio apartment exceeds $2,000 a month. The Washington Free Beacon is not disclosing the exact building Ocasio-Cortez lives in due to safety concerns expressed by her office.
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Her office pushed back against the notion that it was hypocritical for Ocasio-Cortez, who has made housing affordability one of her top policy concerns, to move into a luxury building. A spokesman pointed out that her office also uses a car with an 'internal combustion engine that runs on fossil fuels,' even though she thinks their use should be eliminated.
Many sympathized with Ocasio-Cortez's stated difficulty with finding an apartment in D.C., where rents have been on the rise in recent years. Affording a second residence in the capital has proven to be a challenge for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, with some choosing to live together with colleagues or to bunk up in their congressional office as cost-saving measures.
Ocasio-Cortez's home district residence is a Bronx apartment that was purchased in 1986 by her father, who died from cancer in 2008. She has lived there with her partner since graduating from Boston University in 2011, she has said.
City records show the mortgage on the Bronx apartment was satisfied in June 2007, leaving her only responsible for monthly contributions to home-owner association fees and property taxes, which an office spokesperson says were between $750 and $1,000 a month.
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Ocasio-Cortez's living situation was frequently misrepresented during her successful campaign focused on being relatable to the 'working-class struggles' of fellow New Yorkers, with reports falsely indicating that the family had to 'fight off foreclosure' on the Bronx apartment.
'In 2008, Ocasio-Cortez's father passed away from cancer when he was just 48,' wrote CNBC. 'In order to help fight off foreclosure on her family's apartment in the Bronx, Ocasio-Cortez took on several jobs in restaurants—often working 18-hour shifts.'
The confusion was caused by Ocasio-Cortez, who avoided mentioning, before it was revealed by the Daily Mail, that her father had purchased a second residence—a three-bedroom home about 30 miles north of New York City in Westchester—where she moved as a young child.
Three days before the Daily Mail report, Ocasio-Cortez had made it seem in an interview with The Intercept that the Westchester home her mother lived in was in New York City.
'With my family we sold my childhood home,' Ocasio-Cortez said. 'My mother was forced to move to Florida because she could no longer afford to live in New York City, remain in New York City.'
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Financial disclosure forms show that her only outstanding liability is student loan debt between $15,001 and $50,000.
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Ocasio-Cortez's new Navy Yard stomping ground was recently named 'one of the coolest neighborhoods in the world.' It has been described as the go-to place to both live and socialize for Trump staffers.