Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky

By Dave Goldiner June 27, 2018

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the insurgent firebrand who Tuesday toppled the No. 4 Democrat in the House of Representatives, is a strong critic of Israel who denounced the killings of Palestinian protesters as a “massacre.”

This is a massacre.

I hope my peers have the moral courage to call it such.

No state or entity is absolved of mass shootings of protesters. There is no justification. Palestinian people deserve basic human dignity, as anyone else.

Democrats can’t be silent about this anymore. https://t.co/wJGATOtDsR

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) May 14, 2018

Ocasio-Cortez, 28, stunned the political world by decisively beating Joe Crowley, a Queens powerbroker who had been mentioned as a possible future candidate for Speaker of the House.

With about 90% of precincts reporting, Ocasio-Cortez was ahead by 58%-to-42%, making Crowley the first incumbent Democrat to lose his seat this year.

Ocasio-Cortez said she feels as strongly about the killings in Gaza as she would if the slain protesters were in Ferguson, Missouri or in Puerto Rico, where her family has roots.

“Especially in New York people say this is political suicide,” Ocasio-Cortez told Glenn Greenwald of the Intercept, referring to her criticism of Israel. “But I had a lot of my constituents thanking me for taking that position. I had a lot of Jewish Americans who thanked me.”

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