OMG she's not progressive enough. Sorry, I meant anti-Semitic enough. Where does she get off trying to ....I'm sorry I can't continue. This is too upsetting.
Democratic Socialists Abandon AOC
Hosting a panel on antisemitism proves to be a bridge too far.
By Alexandra Orbuch
July 11, 2024 5:23 pm ET
The Democratic Socialists of America’s National Political Committee withdrew its pledged endorsement of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday. The group said the New York Democrat had failed to meet “conditions” the DSA tied to its endorsement, a majority of which centered on Israel and antisemitism.
According to the group’s July 10 press release, one of the key actions that did Ms. Ocasio-Cortez in was her decision to host a June 10 panel on antisemitism with Jewish leaders. The DSA called the move “a deep betrayal to all those who’ve risked their welfare to fight Israeli apartheid and genocide.”
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is an unlikely candidate for the DSA’s public lashing. She has a history of voting against aid to Israel and attacking the pro-Israel lobby. Less than a month after the Oct. 7 attacks, she maligned the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in a tweet as “racist and bigoted” and “no friend to American democracy.” She also voted against a resolution that urged all countries to “unequivocally condemn Hamas’ brutal war” and another that condemned support for “Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist organizations at institutions of higher education.”
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s statements at the June 10 panel didn’t stray too far from her previous record. She condemned antisemitism as “real and dangerous.” She also admitted that criticism of Zionism and Israel’s government sometimes “crosses a line into real harms against our Jewish community.” But she was careful to clarify that neither is “inherently antisemitic.” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez also made the case that “bad-faith political actors” have been increasingly “weaponizing antisemitism” against “people of color and women of color.”
On Oct. 7 the DSA put out a statement explaining away the day’s “events” as “a direct result of Israel’s apartheid regime.” It contained not a hint of condemnation of Hamas’s rape, murder and torture of Israelis.
On Oct. 8, the DSA’s New York chapter hosted a rally in Manhattan that centered on the slogan “All Out for Palestine.” Photographers snapped pictures of an attendee holding up an image of a swastika. Though the group later issued a public apology for the “timing and the tone” of the rally, it doubled down on its characterization of Israeli “occupation and apartheid.” Days later the DSA’s Seattle chapter sent around a “Palestine Organizing Toolkit” that blamed “the Zionist entity” for the loss of life on Oct. 7 and clarified that the Israelis who were murdered were “not ‘civilians’ in the sense of international law,” but rather “settlers.”
If it wasn’t already clear, in withdrawing its endorsement of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, the DSA sent an important message to the activist left: If you say something nice about Jews, you can’t have our endorsement. Even the energetic young face of American progressivism doesn’t get a pass.
Ms. Orbuch is a Robert L. Bartley Fellow at the Journal.
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