Flashback: AOC Says Some U.S. Communities ‘Have No Choice But to Riot’ if Marginalized

‘Once someone doesn’t have access to clean water, they have no choice but to riot’

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DARDEN: “Well, now you look around the globe and you have multiple corrupt governments working together. You got Israel, you got America, you got Russia, you got the Saudis, right? All working in concert. And I bring up Israel because you’ve been vocal about Palestine, the occupation and what needs to go on there. And specifically, I even think people in Israel are trying to get rid of Netanyahu as well.”

Ocasio-Cortez: “I agree, I agree with that.”

DARDEN: “And there’s a lot of young Jewish people that I know that are absolutely against the occupation. And I wanted you, because often on this program, we have the freedom to address the fact, it’s something that people — it’s an oxymoron, how do you have white supremacist Jews? How do you have people like Stephen Miller? How do you have these individuals who are legit aligning with racism and white supremacy, but they’re Jewish? And it’s something that most people can’t wrap their brains around. But it’s a real thing. And what’s going on with Israel and Palestine, while it’s very, very deep, it is very, very criminal, it’s very, very unjust, right?”

Ocasio-Cortez: “Absolutely. And I think — I think too, where we’re at as a country when it comes to Israel-Palestine is very much a generational issue. And I think that when we start looking at it through that lens, a lot of this stuff starts to make sense. Like, what you’re talking about, young Jews in Israel are sick of this. The Netanyahu administration is very much like the Trump administration.

DARDEN: “Yes.”

Ocasio-Cortez: “And there’s this idea that if you criticize a policy of Israel, you know, the right want to advance this notion that if you engage in critique of Israeli policy, that you are anti-Semitic. But it’s the furthest thing from the truth. Because this is about — I mean, the same way like James Baldwin says I have the right to criticize my country, that’s what makes me a patriot. And the same way that me criticizing Trump doesn’t make me anti-American, criticizing the occupation doesn’t make you anti-Israel, frankly. It doesn’t mean that you are against the existence of a nation. It means that you believe in human rights, and it’s about making sure that Palestinian human rights are equal to Israeli human rights, and there are a lot of troubling things happening there. It doesn’t mean that, you know, there’s this conversation that gets started, and frankly, it’s advanced by the right wing, is that, like, if you engage in any critique, that must mean that you are against the existence of a nation. But we don’t engage in any other country like that. We don’t talk about the U.K. like that. We don’t talk about China like that. We don’t talk about the United States, we don’t talk about — if you critique any other country, they don’t say, ‘Do you believe in Britain’s right to exist?’ And I understand that there is a very deep history — there is a reason why we ask that question when it comes to Israel because Jewish people have been persecuted throughout all of human history. But I don’t think that by marginalizing Palestinians you create safety. I believe that injustice is a threat to the safety of all people. Because once you have a group that is marginalized and marginalized and marginalized, then you create — once someone doesn’t have access to clean water, they have no choice but to riot. Right? And it doesn’t have to be that way. And I’m not even talking about Palestinians. I’m talking about people, communities in poverty in the United States, I’m talking about Latin America, I’m talking about all over the world. And we experienced times like that in our history, in this country. We had riots in 1968, the Bronx was burning. Social destabilization is what happens when people do not have a plan, or feel like there’s no vision for their future.”

DARDEN: “Or they don’t feel safe and they don’t feel protected either, and they don’t feel like anybody is speaking for them.”

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