Summary

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was born in 1989 and is currently serving as the U.S. Representative for New York’s 14^th Congressional District.

Ocasio-Cortez was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2018 midterm elections. She had never held an elected position and did not have any legislative experience before joining Congress. Ocasio-Cortez defeated ten-term incumbent Representative Joe Crowley in the Democratic primary. After winning the general election on November 6, 2018, Ocasio-Cortez became the youngest woman ever to serve in the U.S. Congress.

U.S. Representative Ocasio-Cortez is a harsh critic of Israel and has defended her fellow colleagues Rep. Ilhan Omar and Rep. Rashida Tlaib following their anti-Semitic remarks.

Representative Ocasio-Cortez defended Representative Omar when the latter said in a speech that support for Israel constitutes “allegiance” to a foreign country. Representative Ocasio-Cortez attacked the Israel Defense Forces for committing a “massacre” during the 2018 Gaza riots that were orchestrated by Hamas, disregarding the fact that 50 of the victims were members of the terror group.

When discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, she referred to the “occupation of Palestine”, while acknowledging that she was not an expert on the issue. She is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, a group that supports the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez suggested that cutting U.S. security assistance to Israel should be “on the table”. In June 2019, Representative Ocasio-Cortez cosponsored Rep. Betty McCollum’s House Bill 2407, which accuses Israel of detaining, interrogating, and ill-treating Palestinian minors, asking the State Department to withhold U.S. security assistance funds to Israel that are allegedly used for this purpose.

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez sparked controversy in June 2019, when she seemed to invoke associations with the Holocaust when discussing the immigration system and the situation in the U.S. southern border. She compared the migrant detention centers on the southern border with “concentration camps”.