Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Don’t conflate criticism of Netanyahu and Israel

Democrat congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said her criticisms of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should not be seen as shots at the Jewish state.

“The Netanyahu administration has been pursuing a lot of extraordinarily concerning policies,” she told Channel 12 News in New York.

She likened Netanyahu to President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly attacked her. “To conflate an individual leader or ego with being against the entire country I think is hallmark behavior of folks like our president,” she said.

“Just like we have the ability to criticize our president without being anti-American, I think we can criticize the policies” she added.

Ocasio-Cortez said in the interview that Trump was instrumentalising antisemitism to distract from his policies.

“It’s done completely in bad faith and they can no longer use this allegation of anti-Semitism to defend their unjust and inhumane policies,” she said.

“You can’t use this cudgel of antisemitism to scare people away from pointing that out.”

Trump accused Ocasio-Cortez and three other congresswomen of being antisemitic, apparently over two of the elected representatives’ support for BDS.

Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota both back Israel boycotts, but Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley do not.