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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., doubled down Sunday on claiming Israel is carrying out “genocide” in Gaza and implementing a “forced famine” by blocking humanitarian support to Palestinians.
Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Ocasio-Cortez defended her speech on the House ground on Friday in which the progressive “Squad” member referred to as on President Biden to cease U.S. navy support to Israel.
“If you want to see what an unfolding genocide looks like, open your eyes. It looks like the forced famine of 1.1 million innocents,” she instructed the House ground. “We must write our story in this moment of what it means and who we are as Americans. And our story must be not that we were good men who did nothing.”
CNN’s Jake Tapper challenged that “genocide” is a phrase that has “serious and specific connotations and allegations,” that’s outlined by “the intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, race or religious group.” He requested the congresswoman coined AOC whether or not she believed that the Israeli authorities or the Israeli navy “are actively trying, or actively intend to destroy the Palestinian people – and not that what’s happening if horrible, but it’s happening because Israel’s going after the terrorists of Hamas who attacked them on October 7, and Hamas imbeds within the civilian population.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., gave a House ground speech decrying the “genocide” in Gaza and calling on President Biden to cease support to Israel. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
“This word is extremely serious, that’s taken with extraordinary gravity. And to me, the threshold of intent is a high one, it is a serious one, and is not one that is made lightly,” Ocasio-Cortez responded.
“However, when we look at the precipice of what is happening with a forced famine of 1.1 million Gazans, where multiple governments, NGOs and even officials within the United States State Department have stated themselves plainly that the Israeli government and leaders within the Israeli government are intentionally denying, blocking and slow-walking this aid – and are precipitating a mass famine – I believe we have crossed the threshold of intent. It is horrific,” she mentioned.
The congresswoman added that there’s a “difference between a people and their governments,” together with Israelis from Israeli authorities and Palestinians from Hamas. “But what we’re seeing here with a forced famine is, I believe, beyond our ability to deny or explain away. There is no targeting of Hamas in precipitating a mass famine of one million people, half of whom are children,” she mentioned.
Palestinian youngsters in Rafah queue with water bottles amid an anticipated scarcity because of Israeli assaults on Gaza on March 23, 2024. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu by way of Getty Images)
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Tapper famous how Israeli officers say they’re permitting a whole lot of support vehicles into Gaza per day, which they should examine to make sure that the shipments don’t embody weapons, and declare the battle might cease “tomorrow” if Hamas had been to launch the hostages and put down their weapons. Tapper requested whether or not AOC disagreed.
Egyptian vehicles carrying humanitarian support certain for the Gaza Strip queue exterior the Rafah border crossing on the Egyptian facet on March 23, 2024. (KHALED DESOUKI/AFP by way of Getty Images)
“I do disagree, because when we are talking about famine, the actions of Hamas should not be tied to whether a three-year-old can eat. The actions of Hamas do not justify forcing thousands, hundreds of thousands of people to eat grass as their bodies consume themselves,” she mentioned. “And the Israeli government has a right to go after Hamas, but we are talking about a population of millions of innocent Palestinians. We are talking about collective punishment, which is unjustifiable, and the excuses that the Israeli government is giving about what they are and are not allowing simply do not square with what the U.K. government has stated, with what international aid organizations are stating and even what our own State Department officials are stating, which is that they are not allowing aid to go through.”
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“To operate as allies,” AOC mentioned that the U.S. “must operate in good faith to uphold the principles of democracy, which includes respect for human rights and also proving the value of our democracy, which is that we are different than authoritarian, and we are different from other types of regimes with no regard for innocent people.”
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