On Wednesday, at a joint event with New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez showed once again her paltry knowledge of political issues, stating that after she made inflammatory remarks about the state of Israel that the people who were outraged at her were members of the “alt-right.”
Of course, the idea of the alt-right, some of whose members are famously anti-Semitic, being outraged that Ocasio-Cortez attacked Israel is ludicrous, to say the least. Tell former Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joe Lieberman, an Orthodox Jew, that he’s “alt-right.”
And Ocasio-Cortez made clear that the voices she takes her advice from regarding Israel come from some of the most vehemently anti-Israel groups on the planet.
As the Anti-Defamation League notes, “Jewish Voice for Peace is a radical anti-Israel activist group that advocates for a complete economic, cultural and academic boycott of the state of Israel …JVP considers supporters of Israel, or even critics of Israel who do not hew to JVP’s own extreme views, to be complicit in Israel’s purported acts of racist oppression of Palestinians. JVP leaders believe that expressing support for Israel, or not challenging mainstream Jewish organizations that support Israel, must also be viewed as an implicit attack on people of color and all marginalized groups in the United States.”
J Street has long been seen as anti-Israel; as far back as 2010 attorney Alan Dershowitz wrote, ”It claims to be “a pro-Israel, pro peace lobby.” It has now become neither.” Paul Miller noted in The Hill in 2014, “J Street partners with the rabidly anti-Semitic Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a group in the forefront of the anti-Israel boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement. An SJP document recently uncovered by the education watchdog group AMCHA Initiative reveals SJP plans to target, ostracize, harass and silence pro-Israel students. These are the bigots J Street deems ‘pro-Israel, pro-peace.’” In 2017, the university arm of J Street called for the Jewish community to take “a new approach” and stop “demonizing” the BDS movement, which stands for boycotting, divesting from and sanctioning Israel.
Ocasio-Cortez is not only ignorant of what the alt-right stands for, she doesn’t even have any idea that many of them would gladly endorse her anti-Israel perspective.