AOC: Palestinians ‘Have No Choice but to Riot’ Against Israel

Appearing on the hip-hop radio show Ebro in the Morning, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) agreed Israel treats Palestinians in a “very, very criminal” manner and therefore gives residents “no choice but to riot” against the Jewish state.

A transcript is as follows: 

EBRO DARDEN: Now you look around the globe and you have multiple corrupt governments working together. You got Israel, you got America, you got Russia, you got the Saudis, right? [They] are all working in concert. I bring up Israel because you’ve been vocal about Palestine and the occupation and what needs to go on there. And specifically, I think people in Israel are trying to get rid of Netanyahu.

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: I agree, I agree with that.

DARDEN: There’s a lot of young Jewish people that I know that are absolutely against the occupation. Often on this program, we have the freedom to address the fact — How do you have white supremacist Jews? How do you have people like Stephen Miller? How do you have these individuals who are legit aligning with racism and white supremacy, but they’re Jewish? And it’s something that most people can’t wrap their brains around. But it’s a real thing. And what’s going on with Israel and Palestine, while it’s very, very deep, it is very, very criminal, it’s very, very unjust, right?

OCASIO-CORTEZ: Absolutely. I think, too, where we’re at as a country when it comes to Israel-Palestine is very much a generational issue. And I think that when we start looking at it through that lens, a lot of this stuff starts to make sense… Criticizing the occupation doesn’t make you anti-Israel, frankly. It doesn’t mean that you are against the existence of a nation. It means that you believe in human rights, and it’s about making sure that Palestinian human rights are equal to Israeli human rights, and there are a lot of troubling things happening there.

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I believe that injustice is a threat to the safety of all people, because once you have a group that is marginalized and marginalized and marginalized—once someone doesn’t have access to clean water, they have no choice but to riot, right?… Jewish people have been persecuted throughout all of human history, but I don’t think that by marginalizing Palestinians, you create safety… I believe that injustice is a threat to the safety of all people, because once you have a group that is marginalized and marginalized and marginalized — once someone doesn’t have access to clean water, they have no choice but to riot, right? And it doesn’t have to be that way.