I will start with a confession: I am one of the millions of Americans who had never heard of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez before she won the Democratic primary in New York’s 14th Congressional District, where she was born, and where she has been a community organizer for years. However, since her meteoric rise to national prominence, I have read quite a bit about her, I am impressed by her activism for multiple progressive causes, and I am following with great interest the pressure and scrutiny she has been subjected to on the one issue liberals still can’t unite around: Palestine.
The tug-of-war began when Ocasio-Cortez posted a strongly-worded tweet about Gaza, then back pedaled from that during an interview, in which she claimed she would need to educate herself further on the topic of Israel and Palestine. Her initial tweet, posted during Israel’s deliberate mass killing of Palestinians participating in the Great Return March, read: “This is a massacre. I hope my peers have the moral courage to call it such. No state or entity is absolved of mass shootings of protesters. There is no justification. Palestinian people deserve basic human dignity, as anyone else. Democrats can’t be silent about this anymore.” However, in the interview she gave a few weeks later, she all but apologized for her statement, explaining that she was a novice, and supports “Israel’s right to exist” and “the two-state solution.” Ocasio-Cortez was roundly criticized by various pro-Palestine commentators and activists, including Lamis Deek, who took her to task with a tweet pointing out: “If this were the 1980s and you ran on the same platform, you’d not answer a question regarding South Africa by affirming the Afrikaner government’s ‘right to exist.’” Asad Abu-Khalil, who blogs as “the Angry Arab,” derided her comment on the occupation as “an increasing humanitarian crisis,” claiming: “The worst definition of “the occupation of Palestine” in my lifetime was offered by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.”
Clearly, Ocasio-Cortez is coming under extreme pressure from the well-oiled Zionist apparatus, liberal as well as hawkish, or she would not have back pedaled. Such pressure will not likely let up until she is firmly on one side of the fence, meaning when she can no longer claim that she is insufficiently informed. And the explanations are flowing fast. As a regular contributor to Mondoweiss myself, I was disappointed to see the website publish a lengthy mansplaining essay by Jamie Stern-Weiner, where he presumes to school Octavio-Cortez on the topic, by quoting from the book he edited, with articles that rehash the tired and failed arguments for two-states. Stern-Weiner’s book does not include a chapter on refugee return, because his experts didn’t make a conclusive argument about this important topic, hence he suggests that “it would seem reasonable for Ocasio-Cortez to withhold judgement.” Really? Withhold judgement, even though the Right of Return is a human right enshrined in international law, and one that has been discussed at great length by Palestinian experts, including the world’s foremost authority on the topic, Salman Abu-Sitta?
Ocasio-Cortez may not know enough about Palestine, but she needs to hear from real progressives, not from the various shades of Zionism that have long held the Democratic Party hostage. She needs to understand that whereas Palestine may not be a regular topic of conversation around the kitchen table in a Puerto Rican house, it is nevertheless an issue of national import, which no national politician can ignore, and over which she will come under ever greater scrutiny.
What is needed then, not just with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but with all politicians whose heart is in the right place, is not strident condemnation when they seem fledgling, over-cautious. Rather, we need to support them for any statement they make that reveals that they grasp the fundamental injustice Palestinians are subject to. We have decades of evidence that while few if any progressive politicians have had their careers, prospects, and personal lives destroyed over their embrace of environmental issues or immigrant rights, they do frequently pay the highest price for supporting Palestinian rights. We have seen, over and over again, how these newly-elected politicians are aggressively courted by Zionists, as soon as they rise up from the grassroots to national political office. They will likely be pounced on by AIPAC, or AIPAC-lite, namely J-Street.
A prime example is Rep. Pramila Jayapal, from Washington state. Jayapal first started organizing locally, in Seattle, when she founded the “Hate Free Zone” in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. Following a solid decade of mostly-local work on behalf of immigrants, Jayapal rose to national prominence when she successfully ran for Congress in 2012. She has been described as a “rising star in the Democratic Caucus” by Nancy Pelosi. With her national electoral success, Jayapal has been courted—as indeed all members of congress are—by AIPAC. In 2017, family circumstances prevented Jayapal from going on the AIPAC-sponsored visit to Israel that is otherwise a rite of passage for all congresspeople during their first year’s recess. However, the following year, she went to Israel on a J-Street-sponsored trip, and she is an “endorsee” of J-Street, a full-fledged Zionist organization that nevertheless claims to be progressive, in that oxymoronic way that is the trademark of “liberal Zionists.”
The Palestinian community in Washington (and that includes me) is appalled at Jayapal’s J-Street sponsored visit to Israel, and some of the official statements she posted following that visit, in which she regurgitates Zionist hasbara by calling upon the refugees in Gaza to “show restraint.” How? Should they bleed less profusely, when shot at by Israeli snipers? Should they wait another seventy years? Nevertheless, disappointed as we are, some of us are meeting with her in early August, to give her the Palestinian perspective she would not get from her Zionist hosts. (I am preparing myself for that psychologically by reminding myself that “it wouldn’t be called a struggle if it was easy”).
There is a difference between pushing and condemning, prodding and chastising. And we need to understand that, unless we work with our politicians who show any indication of “getting it,” unless we support them when they seem to be daunted by the national scrutiny and the reach of Zionist influence, unless we educate them, then we might as well just give up the space to liberal “Progressives Except for Palestine,” who will be happy to support their work around immigrant and refugee rights, environmentalism, LGBTQ+ and labor issues, and more, but will “correct” them—guide them away—when it comes to Palestine. Ultimately, our just cause is the loser, unless we keep drudging on.
Today, we are witnessing this dynamic play out nationally with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And though she is special, she is not exceptional. There are dozens of local grassroots organizers all across this country who could, like her, achieve national positions. And we should be there to support them, rather than shame them for the shell-shock they will no doubt experience, should they rise from the grassroots to the grasstops.
where they will be working at an even higher level for the Party of full involvement and unquestioning support to Zionist invasion, theft and genocide.
I’d say that is plain schizophrenia. Why not support those intent on destroying the Zionist Party instead of “progressives” working under its thumb? Got a single good result by electing any of them in the last 50 years?
Of course talk to them if they want to listen. Just don’t vote for them.
Moore,
It refers to the article text (above) I was commenting on, see what I quoted, “them” having been profusely explained in said article.
It’s about some Democrat candidates. For me, I’ll gladly generalize it to anyone, look up “any”, running for or on behalf of the “two” parties of the US system.
I apologize if it wasn’t clear enough, and thanks for the opportunity to repeat it.
So now, can you name one?
Wow. No wonder the so-called Left is failing. What a concept. She’s willing to throw her values out the window at the first sign of pressure from the Zionist lobby, but let’s support her anyway. Maybe she’ll be better once she gets elected. Really? Talk about cognitive disconnect.
Someone should put the following Haaretz article in front of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and demand she read it. She must garner the courage to “take the bull by the horns” and do her best to make Americans aware of the horrors, including gross violations of hard won human rights law, that “Israel” has perpetrated against the defenseless indigenous Palestinians for 70 years. Ever increasing numbers of Americans, especially youth, are eager to learn the truth.
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-israel-is-destroying-palestinian-universities-1.6315086
“Destroying Palestinian Universities”
“Foreign lecturers as well as Palestinian lecturers who studied or taught abroad are being expelled from West Bank academic institutes with a form of bureaucratic violence”
By Daphna Golan, Jul 26/18.
“As Israeli students are finishing their final exams, Palestinian students in the occupied territories don’t know whether their institutions will be opening for the coming academic year or if their lecturers will continue to teach, as dozens of lecturers with European and American citizenship are being expelled.
“Around half the foreign lecturers at Palestinian universities started receiving letters last November, saying their requests to have their residency visas extended had been refused because they’ve been ‘living in the area for more than five years.’
“In addition, the foreign spouses of these lecturers are being asked to sign declarations that they do not intend to work. To assure that they keep this promise, they are asked to pay guarantees of between 20,000 shekels and 80,000 shekels (about $5,500 to $22,000), which will be forfeited if it is discovered that they’d been working despite the ban.
“We are not talking about universities in Gaza, where both the lecturers and students are under siege and cannot leave at all, and foreign lecturers cannot enter, but universities in the West Bank.
“This year, at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, I had the privilege of teaching both Israeli and Palestinian students, as well as students from Peru, Kenya, Cyprus, Canada and Greece. During this academic year, as every year, there were international conferences held at the university attended by foreign researchers. By contrast, dozens of students and lecturers from abroad who want to study or teach at Palestinian universities are being arrested at the border and expelled.
“The campus of the Arab American University in Jenin. Established in 2000, AAUJ offers studies in English and has attracted growing numbers of Israeli Arab students. Yaser Wakid, Laura Wick and her husband, Prof. Roger Hickok, are among those who are being forced to leave after 35 years of teaching and research at Birzeit University, because their visas have not been extended. Wick specializes in pediatric medical research and Hickok is a professor of European history, one of the founders of the university’s Institute of International Studies.
In a public letter that was circulated on international academic networks, Hickok described how he and his wife had become ‘illegal’ residents. It happened when they returned from a home visit to the United States. At Ben-Gurion Airport they were given a tourist visa for two weeks, and told they would have to ask the military authorities to extend it. The description of their Kafkaesque efforts to enter the military camp in Beit El to deal with their visas, and of the phone calls and faxes that weren’t answered for months, is sad and depressing.
“The presence of international researchers for lengthy periods is an international criterion for ranking institutions of higher education. Without such a presence, the university suffers from what’s referred to as ‘ghettoization of knowledge.’ What’s more, a significant number of the lecturers being expelled are Palestinians who studied in the United States and Europe; some were born in the occupied territories and went to study abroad.
“While Israel makes great efforts and invests millions to bring back Israeli academics who are teaching abroad, it makes life very difficult for Palestinian lecturers who studied and taught abroad, allowing them to teach in Palestinian universities for five years at most. The expulsion of Palestinian lecturers, which prevents them from getting tenure and developing an academic career in the territories will only lead to the slow destruction of Palestinian universities.
“At Birzeit University, all students are required to study European philosophy and history.. It was also the first university in the Middle East to establish a women’s studies program. However, the male and female students – women account for more than half of the student body – have almost no option to study abroad, and the lecturers who teach English, European or American history, cultural studies and foreign literature, are being expelled.
During the first intifada, the Israeli army closed the universities for years, and closed schools and kindergartens for many months, creating the so-called “lost generation.” This is the generation whose education suffered a serious setback and from which the lecturers of today could have sprung.
“Does Israel want to create more lost generations of Palestinians who won’t get higher education and are not exposed to foreign ideas and knowledge? Does the destruction of higher education in the territories benefit Israel? Will Israel’s bureaucratic violence lead to similar restrictions being imposed on Israeli students and academics?”
Prof. Golan teaches in the Hebrew University Law Faculty. Her book “Hope on the Campus Margins – Israeli and Palestinian Students in Jerusalem,” was recently published by Resling.
There’s currently a petition to Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, initiated by Jews for Palestinian Right of Return, that addresses the concerns this article, and some of those leaving comments, have raised.
To add your name to the over 2,000 other signers, please go to: tinyurl.com/AOCPetition.
Petition text:
TELL ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: STAND BY YOUR PRINCIPLES — STAND WITH PALESTINE!
Supporters of justice around the world were heartened when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently won the Queens Democratic congressional primaries with a grassroots campaign that included a forceful condemnation of the ongoing Israeli massacre of Palestinian Great Return March protesters in Gaza.
Now, under intense Zionist backlash, she has “walked back” her stand, saying she had not used “the right words” in calling out Israeli occupation, and endorsing Israel’s “right to exist.”
We fully embrace Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ original defense of Palestinian rights, and reiterate these essential facts:
• From day one, Israel has been a settler-colonial regime of occupation on stolen Palestinian land, a status it recently formalized. It has no more “right to exist” than Jim Crow or apartheid South Africa!
• The Great Return March demands an end to Israel’s genocidal siege on Gaza, as well as refugees’ right, enshrined in UN Resolution 194, to return to homes from which they were expelled during the 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe)that created that Israeli state.
• Since the Gaza protests began in March, Israel has murdered at least 146 Palestinians (including children, reporters, and first responders), while wounding another 16,496. Unconscionably, this massacre is made possible by $3.8 billion a year in bipartisan U.S. military aid to Israel.
• The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), of which Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a member, endorses the growing movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against apartheid Israel.
Alexandria, your campaign is only as strong as its principles. Just as you speak truth to power for Abolish ICE, Standing Rock, Black Lives Matter, and Puerto Rico, stand firm with justice for Palestine!