Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) listens during a House Financial Services Committee hearing on April 10, 2019 in Washington, DC. Image by Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images

By Aiden Pink April 15, 2019

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview with Yahoo News on Sunday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a “Trump-like figure” who is part of “the ascent of authoritarianism across the world.”

Speaking to Yahoo’s Skullduggery podcast, the freshman Democrat from New York said that Netanyahu’s pre-election pledge last week to annex the West Bank should affect American policy towards the Jewish state, and that there are “conversations happening in our caucus.”

When asked if she would support reducing American military aid to Israel, Ocasio-Cortez replied, “I think it’s certainly on the table….I hope to play a facilitating role in this conversation and a supportive role in this conversation. But I also know that there have been people leading on this for a long time, like Congresswoman [Betty] McCollum.”

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

McCollum, a 10-term Democrat from Minnesota, introduced a bill in 2017 to prevent American aid to Israel from being used to detain Palestinian children that received 30 Democratic co-sponsors. McCollum also said in 2018 that Israel’s Nation-State Law was “apartheid.”

Ocasio-Cortez received some criticism during her upset 2018 primary campaign victory after she described the deaths of Palestinians on the Gaza border as a “massacre.” But she seemed to backtrack when interviewed by PBS after her primary, telling Margaret Hoover that she planned to “learn and evolve on this issue” and that she was not “the expert on geo-politics on this issue.”

President Obama agreed in 2016 to a 10-year, $38 billion military aid deal with Israel, but the deal has not yet been approved by Congress.

Aiden Pink is the deputy news editor for the Forward. You can reach him at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$90 $180

$360

Other amount