Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a US representative, said on Wednesday that she will oppose any future US military aid to Israel, including for defensive systems.
In a statement on social media, Ocasio-Cortez said that Israel was fully capable of funding “Iron Dome and other defensive systems”, and that “consistent with my voting record to date, I will not support Congress sending more taxpayer dollars and military aid to a government that consistently ignores international law and US law”.
Her remarks on Wednesday follow reports that she pledged to oppose any future military aid to Israel during a New York City Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) forum on Tuesday evening.
“Our allies who need our military aid must understand that we will provide it consistent with the Leahy amendment and the foreign assistance act”, Ocasio-Cortez added, referring to a law which prohibits the US from providing military support to army units that violate human rights.
According to City & State, which obtained a partial recording of the DSA forum, Ocasio-Cortez told members: “I have not once ever voted to authorize funding to Israel, and I will never,” adding that “the Israeli government should be able to finance their own weapons if they seek to arm themselves.”
Her path to getting here was stupid, allowing themselves to get outflanked by MTG was utterly unforced, and her response was worse.
Its great she’s sharpening this point, but how you get to where you end up matters for what amounts to the best progressive hope for 2028 (at least for now). It showed, frankly, a very clumsy ability to navigate politics, ultimately leaving her pissing off both the anti-zionists and the pro-genocide caucuses. Its not a feather in her cap for demonstrating a great ability to navigate issues or lead caucuses.
And that is my primary concern with AOC. She’s one of the best communicators the left has. But she is consistently not a leader on the most important issues we have, and is far too calculating. Genuinely, she reminds me of Pelosi in this manner.
She is definitely not strong on foreign policy, this much was apparent when she spoke on complex issues at the Munich Security Conference and struggled to be fully coherent.
But there’s still time for her to hone it. What was her path to getting here?
She’s trying to create a middle path here where one side is genocide. It’s pretty disconcerting overall but Israel is the last great Western colonial settler project and colonialism is prosperity / glory to the West and genocide / displacement to the Global South (or human majority).
Thankfully there are many here that are against it but clearly she feels that a centrist approach will be more expedient for her political aspirations.
Something as serious as defending taiwan against the second economic and military power china is not something you can talk about without days of reflection. I find ridiculous to be so hard on her for that specific question