ehh…the actual concrete actions AOC has taken that they disagree with are quite weaksauce:
We recognize that AOC has taken many courageous positions on Palestine such as co-sponsoring several House Resolutions (3103, 786, 496), naming Israel’s genocide as well as opposing House Resolution 894. However, members have raised their concerns regarding a number of her votes, including a vote in favor of H.Res.888, conflating opposition to Israel’s “right to exist” with antisemitism.
HR 888 primarily condemned the October 7th attack by Hamas, but also included language about “denying Israel’s right to exist is a form of antisemitism”. it passed with only one dissenting vote (Thomas Massie, R-KY) and one present vote (Rashida Tlaib, D-MI)
Ilhan Omar voted yes, as did Pramila Jayapal (my representative, and chair of the Progressive Caucus, who’s generally very good about opposing the Gaza genocide) and every other Congressional Democrat besides Tlaib. so I don’t think a yes vote on this alone is sufficient for me to discard a politician as having been captured by Zionism or the military-industrial complex or whatever.
AOC also co-signed a press release on April 20, 2024, that “support[s] strengthening the Iron Dome and other defense systems”
they don’t cite their sources so this one took a bit of digging, but they seem to be referring to this. 20 Democrats, including AOC, voted against the “Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act” and put out a press release with their reasoning.
so they took what IMO is the correct position - voting to deny additional offensive weapons to the Israeli military. and the DSA is cherry-picking one phrase out of the 5-paragraph statement to paint her in a bad light. if you read it in context, they’re talking about opposing offensive weapons but being OK with defensive ones.
Finally, AOC recently hosted a public panel with leaders from the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, lobbyists for the IHRA definition of antisemitism. On this panel, anti-Zionism and antisemitism were conflated and boycotting Zionist institutions was condemned.
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Correction: “She conflated anti-Zionism with antisemitism” was edited to read “On this panel, anti-Zionism and antisemitism were conflated” after the statement was posted.
the other two are debatable. this one isn’t. this is just fucking sloppy bullshit.
it’s a 36 minute long Zoom call. AOC hosts it, with two other people.
their original statement claimed she conflated anti-Zionism with antisemitism. they clearly didn’t put much effort into checking that, because after they published the statement they had to backtrack and make the correction that it was someone else on the panel.
they call it a “public panel” but it was just a YouTube stream. in more than a year it’s only gotten 10k views. and someone else on the stream said something that DSA members disagreed with? that’s just absurd levels of guilt by association.
you’re welcome! I had seen some rumblings elsewhere about AOC & Israel, but hadn’t taken the time to look into them, so I used this as an opportunity to see for myself if there was any truth to them.
I’ve been a DSA member for a long time, but god they can be their own worst enemies. This is the exact kind of nitpicking and misrepresentation of non-perfect candidates that I’ve seen the anti-reformist lot push.
Especially not ones that seem to be drifting towards supporting Israel.
ehh…the actual concrete actions AOC has taken that they disagree with are quite weaksauce:
HR 888 primarily condemned the October 7th attack by Hamas, but also included language about “denying Israel’s right to exist is a form of antisemitism”. it passed with only one dissenting vote (Thomas Massie, R-KY) and one present vote (Rashida Tlaib, D-MI)
Ilhan Omar voted yes, as did Pramila Jayapal (my representative, and chair of the Progressive Caucus, who’s generally very good about opposing the Gaza genocide) and every other Congressional Democrat besides Tlaib. so I don’t think a yes vote on this alone is sufficient for me to discard a politician as having been captured by Zionism or the military-industrial complex or whatever.
they don’t cite their sources so this one took a bit of digging, but they seem to be referring to this. 20 Democrats, including AOC, voted against the “Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act” and put out a press release with their reasoning.
so they took what IMO is the correct position - voting to deny additional offensive weapons to the Israeli military. and the DSA is cherry-picking one phrase out of the 5-paragraph statement to paint her in a bad light. if you read it in context, they’re talking about opposing offensive weapons but being OK with defensive ones.
the other two are debatable. this one isn’t. this is just fucking sloppy bullshit.
again, doing the DSA’s work of citing their sources for them - her announcement and the video itself
it’s a 36 minute long Zoom call. AOC hosts it, with two other people.
their original statement claimed she conflated anti-Zionism with antisemitism. they clearly didn’t put much effort into checking that, because after they published the statement they had to backtrack and make the correction that it was someone else on the panel.
they call it a “public panel” but it was just a YouTube stream. in more than a year it’s only gotten 10k views. and someone else on the stream said something that DSA members disagreed with? that’s just absurd levels of guilt by association.
Thank you, I appreciate the time you put into researching and debunking this! Consider my mind changed
you’re welcome! I had seen some rumblings elsewhere about AOC & Israel, but hadn’t taken the time to look into them, so I used this as an opportunity to see for myself if there was any truth to them.
I’ve been a DSA member for a long time, but god they can be their own worst enemies. This is the exact kind of nitpicking and misrepresentation of non-perfect candidates that I’ve seen the anti-reformist lot push.