Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that House Democratic leadership’s rebuke of her “Squad” colleague of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) feeds into “right-wing vitriol.”
Omar tweeted, “We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity. We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban.”
Anchor Dana Bash said, “I want to ask about top Democratic House leaders and a dozen of your Jewish Democratic colleagues issued a statement criticizing your friend be and colleague Ilhan Omar, congresswoman from Minnesota, for what some Democrats said was a, quote, ‘offensive and misguided remark that they say equated the U.S. and Israel with Hamas and Taliban, terrorist organizations. She later clarified, saying she was not doing that. But I want you and our viewers to read what you tweeted in response. You said, ‘Pretty sick and tired of the constant vilification, intentional mischaracterization, and public targeting of Ilhan Omar coming from our caucus. They have no concept for the danger they put her in by skipping private conversations and leaping to fueling targeted new cycles around her.’ First question is, what exactly did your fellow Democrats mischaracterize? And are you saying that they are to blame for some threats against her?”
Ocasio-Cortez said, “Well, you know, I think —I believe that her comments were absolutely mischaracterized. She was very clearly speaking about the ICC investigations, which name these four actors in two suits. And they named them in context events that happened in Afghanistan with the United States and with Taliban and in Palestine with Hamas and the government of Israel. You know, I think that to say that, I believe that to assert that she was equating these two entities when she was speaking about the ICC investigations in which all four parties are being investigated for instances of war crimes, you know, I believe to assert that this was equating these two I believe was not a generous interpretation whatsoever.”
She added, “And we know that you know, these very intense news cycles, which by the way started — this whole hubbub started with right-wing news outlets taking what she said out of context. And when we feed into that, it adds legitimacy to a lot of this kind of right-wing vitriol. It absolutely kind of increases that target. And as someone who has experienced that, you know, it’s very difficult to communicate the scale and how dangerous that is.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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