Appearing on CNN Monday night, Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez denounced remarks by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that among other things included the declaration that all Palestinians are antisemites.
Calling his comments “dangerous and destructive,” Ocasio-Cortez compared DeSantis’ remarks to the right-wing rhetoric that inspired the brutal murder of a six-year-old Arab American boy over the weekend.
At issue were statements DeSantis made during a stop for his Republican presidential primary campaign.
“We cannot accept people from Gaza into this country as refugees,” DeSantis said. “I am not going to do that. If you look at how they behave, not all of them are Hamas, but they are all antisemitic. None of them believe in Israel’s right to exist.”
On CNN NewsNight, host Abby Phillip played a clip of those remarks. Then, ignoring the blanket statement he made about Palestinians, she asked, “Should Arab countries be taking on the lion’s share of the burden to absorb what could be over a million if not more refugees in Gaza?”
Ocasio-Cortez conceded Israel’s neighbors should be “able to support and step up” for their Palestinian neighbors, but added, “however, that does not abdicate the United States from our historic role that we’ve played in the world of accepting refugees and allowing people to restart their lives here.”
AOC then addressed DeSantis’ remarks directly.
“When he said quote unquote, ‘all Gazans are antisemitic,’ how incredibly destructive and dangerous that rhetoric is. We just had a six-year-old boy stabbed 26 times… because of rhetoric like that. And it is dangerous and unacceptable, it is reckless. And no leader in the United States of America should be amplifying a message like that.”
Watch the clip below:
What Ocasio-Cortez referred to here is the horrifying murder of Wadea Al-Fayoume, the six-year-old Chicago child of Palestinian refugees whose mother moved to the U.S a decade ago. He was stabbed 26 times by his family’s landlord, Joseph Czuba, who turned on him after unsuccessfully trying to kill his mother, Hanan Shaheen. (She was grievously wounded but is expected to survive.) Czuba has been arrested and is being charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, two counts of a hate crime and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.
Prosecutors say Czuba became enraged and hostile to his Palestinian tenants after consuming a steady diet of right-wing talk radio.
There has been violence committed by people across the political spectrum throughout American history. But FBI studies show that right-wing terrorism has been far more common than left wing terrorism since the 1990s. And there is substantial evidence of violence inspired by right-wing media in recent decades.
