Ocasio-Cortez says US representatives ‘don’t vote their conscience’ on Israeli actions
US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has criticised a pro-Israel lobby group for spending the “most in primary history” to unseat Jamaal Bowman, a progressive Democrat who has been critical of Israel’s war in Gaza.
The spending showed why US representatives give “unconditional vote support for nearly any Israeli government action” because they are “terrified” the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) could push to have them replaced with another candidate, Ocasio-Cortez said in a post on X.
The United Democracy Project, a group affiliated with the powerful AIPAC, reportedly spent 61 percent of a total of $23m on advertising ahead of the primary election for the seat currently held by Bowman, the tracking firm AdImpact said.
AIPAC responded with its own post, claiming the “overwhelming majority of Congress votes with their constituents who support the [United States-Israel] relationship.”
Ocasio-Cortez countered, asking why the lobby group needed to spend so much money on advertising if its positions were as popular as it claimed.
An unspoken secret in Congress is that much of the reflexive, blind, unconditional vote support for nearly any Israeli gov action isn’t from actual agreement.
It’s from fear.
Reps are terrified of this ⬇️. Of AIPAC. So they don’t vote their conscience. They vote their fear. https://t.co/0MmZnUtBTH
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 19, 2024
When it comes to Israel-Palestine, true naivety is believing in endless war
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/6/20/when-it-comes-to-israel-palestine-true-naivety-is-believing-in-endless-war
We are an Israeli and a Palestinian who forged an “unlikely” friendship when the world expected us to hate each other.
One of us lost his parents on October 7, the other lost his brother in the first Intifada. It was this mutual loss, pain and shared vision that brought us together.
We recognise that our loss, but also our friendship, is the result of the absence of peace. We’re unusual, but by no means unique. We are part of a community of Israelis and Palestinians who have different nationalities, religions and narratives. But a shared identity: it’s called peacebuilder.
We have often been marginalised by many – both at home and abroad – as “naive”. But last week at the G7 Summit in Apulia, world leaders finally recognised that what is truly naive is to imagine that any strategy to end this horrific conflict can succeed without people like us at the vanguard.
US military’s ‘stop-start’ pier re-attached to Gaza shore
Earlier today, Reuters news agency reported that the US military re-attached a troubled floating pier to the shore of the Gaza Strip after recently removing it temporarily due to poor sea conditions.
The Reuters report, which described the US-built floating pier as “on-again, off-again” and “stop-start”, quoted unnamed US officials as saying operations on the pier would resume on Thursday.
Only a limited amount of aid has been delivered via the pier since it opened on May 17, 10 days after Israeli forces seized the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
A UN spokesperson on Wednesday said there had been no update regarding the pier since the World Food Programme said it was pausing deliveries due to safety concerns, which came amid allegations the pier played a role in the Israeli captive rescue operation in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza that killed more than 270 people. The US denied the allegations.
The $230m pier has come to symbolise, for some, the failures and contradictions of US policy in Gaza.
