Since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas War, Alexandria has called for a permanent ceasefire — and as one of the original cosponsors of the Ceasefire Now Resolution, she has helped grow the number of representatives calling for one to 66 members strong.
And on Friday, Alexandria spoke on the House floor about the unfolding genocide in Palestine for the first time.
This morning, Alexandria went on CNN to discuss her decision to call on the Biden Administration to cut off military aid to Israel until it allows more humanitarian aid to reach the civilians of Gaza.
We wanted to share an excerpt of her comments with you here. You can also watch Alexandria’s full interview on X (formerly known as Twitter) or Instagram.
The word genocide is extremely serious. It is not one that is used lightly.
However, when we look at the precipice of what is happening — with a forced famine of 1.1 million Gazans, and where multiple governments, NGO’s, and even officials within the United States State Department have stated themselves plainly that the Israeli government is intentionally denying, blocking, and slow walking humanitarian aid — I believe we have crossed the threshold of intent to commit genocide.
It is horrific.
I think it is extremely important that all people understand the difference between people and their governments – Israelis and the Israeli government, Palestinians from Hamas – but what we are seeing here, with a forced famine, is beyond our ability to deny or explain away.
There is no targeting of Hamas in precipitating a mass famine of 1 million people, half of whom are children.
The actions of Hamas should not be tied to whether a 3-year-old can eat.
The actions of Hamas do not justify forcing hundreds of thousands of people to eat grass as their bodies consume themselves.
The Israeli government has a right to go after Hamas. But we are talking about a population of millions of innocent Palestinians.
We are talking about collective punishment, which is unjustifiable.
We must operate in good faith to uphold the principles of democracy, which includes respect for human rights. And also proving the value of our democracy, which is that we are different from authoritarian regimes with no regard for innocent people.
Thank you for reading,
Team AOC
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