Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the “Squad” congresswoman who has never shied away from critiquing Israel, went far off the reservation with her latest condemnations, prompting NewsNation anchor Chris Cuomo to declare she was “dead wrong” about the nation’s recent pager attack against Hezbollah.
Last week saw thousands of pagers and electronic devices remotely detonate in the hands of terrorist fighters, a devastating attack carried out by Israel counterintelligence officials seeking to kill or injure fighters who they believe were readying to support Hamas. Speaking with reporters on Friday, AOC declared Israel’s attack a “war crime” worthy of international prosecution.
“She [Ocasio-Cortez] started by accusing Israel of a war crime for what they did to members of Hezbollah in Beirut, and then, asking for an investigation, accused them of a war crime, asked for an investigation,” Cuomo said. “Then she decided to get truthy and show her claim that the exploding pagers were ‘clearly’ in violation of U.S. policy.”
Going on, he quoted the Democratic lawmaker, saying, “‘This attack clearly unequivocally violates international humanitarian law, undermines U.S. efforts to prevent a wider conflict.’ And then she said it violates U.S. policy. Clearly. Israel is not one of the United States, so they don’t follow our laws or rules. Second, if the representative was suggesting by that comparison that the United States should therefore not support Israel, good luck with that. And then, here’s what really bothers me about this salvo: She’s dead wrong. This is why you don’t accuse and then go in search of a crime.”
In her condemnation, Cuomo added, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez failed to fully cite a Department of Defense manual she claimed spelled out Israel’s criminal culpability. “Here’s the part that she left out, oddly, the next section after the one she cited, ‘The use of mines, booby traps, other devices is subject to the same rules and principles that govern the use of other weapons to conduct attacks,’” Cuomo read. “The rules include a prohibition against indiscriminate use of mines, booby traps and other devices. Indiscriminate. What does that mean? It means that all feasible precautions shall be taken to prevent civilians from the effects of mines, booby traps, and other devices, taking into account all circumstances ruling at the time, including humanitarian and military considerations.”
“The war manual even specifies an example of when booby traps are not prohibited. It would not be prohibited to improvise a booby trap, for example, to retard an enemy advance. What does that mean? Could mean a lot of things,” Cuomo said. “One of them certainly is a group of bloodthirsty terrorists coming from you. So, did she not read that part because she’s not a lawyer or not thorough, or did intentionally not want to be fair? One is misfeasance, not doing your job well. The other is malfeasance, doing it badly on purpose.”
For someone who supposedly places such a high value on human lives, even those of Hezbollah fighters, AOC is conspicuously silent from condemning the second assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump or the recent death threats against conservative Congresswoman Anna Paulina (R-FL). “She had nothing to say about her colleague Anna Paulina Luna when that’s exactly what happened to her and she said nothing about the assassination attempts against former President Trump,” Cuomo said. “So what do we know? Clearly, she does not value her opponents as humans the way she does herself.”
