Left-wing star Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) delivered a rambling and incoherent explanation last week of how she views the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, drawing comparisons with the treatment of detained children in the U.S. border with Mexico.
Asked what steps could be taken to advance peace in the Middle East, Ocasio-Cortez responded by launching into a babbling and indecipherable speech about the “what versus the how.”
“I think that when we talk about establishing peace, and centering people’s humanities, protecting people’s rights, it’s not just about the ‘what’ and the end goal, which often gets a lot of focus. But I actually think it’s much more about the ‘how’ and the way that we are coming together and we interpret that ‘what’ and the actions that we take to get to that ‘what,’” Ocasio-Cortez told Rabbi Michael Miller, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, on April 1.
“What this really is about is that it’s a question more than anything else about process. We really need to make sure that we are valuing a process where all parties are respected, and have a lot of equal opportunity to really make sure that we are negotiating in good faith.”
“The value of human rights is really the path to peace here,” Ocasio-Cortez told Miller.
“That’s a central thing that we need to make sure that we value the safety and the human rights of Israelis and we value the safety and human rights of Palestinians in that process that is similar on equal footing.”
“Just like here in the United States, I don’t believe that children should be detained. I think that starting on those basic principles of human rights, we can build a path to peace together.”
Critics on Twitter mocked Ocasio-Cortez for her response to Miller’s question, with one commenting: “This sounds like she is giving a oral book report in front of the class on a book that she has never read.”
Another Twitter user quipped: “She would have been better off with an interpretive dance.”
A third commented, “What about the Where? Have we considered The Who and the Whom? All while disregarding the Because.”
Last year, Jewish groups, including many leftwing ones, slammed Ocasio-Cortez for withdrawing from an event commemorating late-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, who was one of Israel’s most dovish leaders and who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.
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