During Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s San Francisco speech on Tuesday evening, left-wing activists started chanting, “From Palestine to Mexico, all the walls have got to go!” Ocasio-Cortez reportedly smiled and said, “Thanks!”
“Abolish ICE” activists and anti-Israel activists on the left have recently been using the chant at demonstrations. Ocasio-Cortez’s primary win emboldened “Abolish ICE” activists and pushed Democrats like Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) to call for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to be abolished.
Anti-Israel activists on the left also believed they found an ally when Ocasio-Cortez spoke about the “occupation of Palestine” in a recent interview even though she admitted that she did not even have a clear understanding of what she was talking about, saying that she is “not the expert on geopolitics on the issue.” Ocasio-Cortez also said she was unfamiliar with Israel-Palestinian issues because she did not grow up discussing Middle Eastern politics in her district or at home.
“And especially with the district that I represent, I come from the South Bronx, I come from a Puerto Rican background. And Middle Eastern politics is not exactly at my kitchen table every night,” she said in that PBS interview in which she said she was also open to evolving on the issue.
According to a San Francisco Examiner report, Ocasio-Cortez, while reportedly “addressing the calls in support of Palestine” during her Tuesday San Francisco speech, said that she comes “from a community that has no representation” as a woman of Puerto Rican descent and spoke about Puerto Ricans who have to experience second-class citizenship.