Is Biden taking lessons from ‘lady’ AOC? Ruthie Blum
https://www.jns.org/is-biden-taking-lessons-from-lady-aoc/
U.S. President Joe Biden began his Earth Day speech at Prince William Forest Park in Virginia on Monday by singling out a few prominent climate-change figures in attendance. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who introduced him, was one of them.
“You know, I learned a long time ago: Listen to that lady; listen to that lady,” he said. “We’re going to talk more about another part of the world, too, real quickly.”
It doesn’t take a genius to guess what region he had in mind. AOC—as the member of his party’s radical “Squad” is familiarly known—has been vocal in her demand that Biden suspend all aid to Israel over the “genocide” it’s committing in Gaza.
When the president said that he and she would be discussing this topic “real quickly,” he was hinting at a meeting that was to take place after the event. Indeed, when it was over, he, AOC and Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) flew together to the White House, where the four buddies who share an aversion to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were seen entering the Oval Office.
Before they hopped on the Marine One helicopter and headed to D.C., Biden was stopped by reporters. “Do you condemn the antisemitic protests on college campuses?” one asked.
Echoing the question in his answer, he replied, “I condemn the antisemitic protests; that’s why I’ve set up a program to deal with that. I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians and how they’re being …”
It’s not unusual for Biden to trail off, mid-sentence. But in this case, he may have decided against completing his outrageous statement.
In the first place, it was an egregious expression of moral equivalence between Jews and the perpetrators of the worst atrocities against them since the Holocaust. Secondly, while the Jew-hatred being spewed across institutions of higher learning is undeniable—with demonstrators shouting at their pro-Israel counterparts, “Go back to Poland! Go back to Belarus!”—nobody in the world is showing a lack of sympathy for the Palestinians in Gaza.
Even the Israeli government regularly declares that the current war is against Hamas, not the residents of Gaza over whom the Iran-back terrorist organization rules. This is why so much care has been taken by the Israel Defense Forces to minimize civilian casualties and enable the flow of humanitarian aid into the Strip.
If anything, there’s not enough of an outcry surrounding the dire straits of the 133 remaining men, women and children held hostage by the same brutal rapists who gleefully slaughtered 1,200 innocents on Oct. 7 on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah. And there’s hardly ever a mention of Hamas rocket barrages—other than from those in favor of killing Jews with them, that is.
The irony is inescapable.
As the debate continues in Israel and abroad about “regular” Gazans’ level of collusion with Hamas during and since the Oct. 7 massacre—with many saying that it’s hard to blame a fearful and brain-washed population—the mobs at Columbia University and other Ivy League schools aren’t concerned with such distinctions.
On the contrary, their message is all Palestinians are and should be loyal to Hamas. Take the following chant, for instance:
“Ya, Qassam [Hamas’s Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades], make us proud. Take another soldier out. We say, ‘Justice;’ you say, ‘How?’ Burn Tel Aviv to the ground. Ya, Hamas, we love you. We support your rockets, too. We support Hamas this time. It is right to rebel. Ya, Qassam, give them hell. Free, free Palestine. Free, free, free Palestine.”
Unlike those concerned about freeing Palestinians from Hamas for the benefit of the Middle East and beyond, the privileged protesters in Manhattan’s Morningside Heights are enamored of the terrorists. That’s not how AOC describes them, of course.
“It is especially important that we remember the power of young people shaping the country today of all days,” she stressed from her perch on the Earth Day ceremony podium, “as we once again witness the leadership of those peaceful student-led protests on campuses like Columbia, Yale, Berkeley and many others.”
Note to Biden: This Hamas apologist is the last “lady” you should be listening to on any topic, least of all one involving Israel and the Jews.
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