Ilhan Omar Rips AOC for Praise of Harris’s Gaza Ceasefire Push

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., once an outsider who vowed to take on the Democratic establishment, is finally being embraced by her own party. The progressive member of Congress took to the stage at the Democratic National Convention on Monday night to give a full-throated endorsement of Kamala Harris for president and was met with rapturous applause and chants of her now-famous initials.

As pro-Palestine protesters gathered in Chicago to disrupt the DNC, however, Ocasio-Cortez also used her speech to push a talking point that Harris and the Biden administration are working to end Israel’s war in Gaza. Hers was the first mention of Gaza on the DNC stage.

“She is working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and bringing the hostages home,” Ocasio-Cortez told the crowd, of Harris.

“Frankly, it’s a somewhat puzzling claim, given that Vice President Harris’s responsibilities don’t include U.S. foreign policy.”

The Harris campaign quickly clipped and posted a video of the moment to TikTok.

“Frankly, it’s a somewhat puzzling claim, given that Vice President Harris’s responsibilities don’t include U.S. foreign policy,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now. “Ultimately, the only thing we can judge by is the factual evidence. And the factual evidence is that almost a year now into the war, or 10 months into the war, there has been no ceasefire.”

Ocasio-Cortez’s speech and its embrace by the Democratic mainstream exposed rifts on the left — from the Democratic Socialists of America, the group that propelled the New York representative’s meteoric rise, to fellow Squad member Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.

“It’s been unconscionable for me the last 10 months to witness my colleagues in this administration refusing to recognize the genocidal war that is taking place in Gaza,” Omar said on Wednesday.

The Minnesota representative, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, directly attacked the administration, but used Ocasio-Cortez’s turn of phrase in a thinly veiled admonishment: “To not understand that ‘working tirelessly’ for a ceasefire is really not a thing, and they should be ashamed of themselves.”

Rep. Omar: it’s been unconscionable “to witness my colleagues in this administration refusing to recognize the genocidal war that is taking place in Gaza … working tirelessly for a ceasefire is really not a thing and they should be ashamed of themselves” pic.twitter.com/BUSNpOU6je

— Akela Lacy (@akela_lacy) August 21, 2024

DSA Disillusionment

The convention speech raised the ire of some. The Democratic Socialists of America, for instance, counted Ocasio-Cortez as a member and led the ground campaign operation that put her in the U.S. House. Now, however, the group is at odds with its most prominent national success story.

In July, the DSA pulled its endorsement of Ocasio-Cortez over Gaza. In a statement about the decision, DSA’s national political committee acknowledged her strong positions on the war — she was among the first members of Congress to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, leading House Democrats in a November letter — but said the group expected her to “demonstrate a higher level of commitment to Palestinian liberation.”

“Her inability to say it’s a genocide for months, her inability to take the oppositional role that Rashida Tlaib” — a Palestinian American representative from Michigan — “is taking in this moment, is a betrayal,” said Ahmed Husain, a member of DSA’s national political committee.

The rifts speaks to an age-old question of politics: What compromises must be made to gain power and the political capital necessary to effect change?

“For people who struggle letting go of the notion of AOC as this upstart insurgent against the establishment, I think it is uncomfortable to reckon with her absorption into the establishment because it reinforces despair,” Husain said. “It reinforces this disillusionment, that we can’t do anything at all to change things in America. But that is not true. We can always change things. We can always build an alternative.”

With two members of the Squad — Reps. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., and Cori Bush, D-Mo. — losing their primaries after being targeted by the pro-Israel group AIPAC, some progressives argued that Ocasio-Cortez and others like Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., are acting pragmatically and deserve credit for the positions they’ve taken on U.S.–Israel policy.

“It is notable that calls for a Gaza ceasefire by Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Warnock received such strong applause at the DNC in Chicago this week,” said Hassan El-Tayyab, legislative director for Middle East policy at the Friends Committee on National Legislation.

Watered Down Ceasefire Calls

Ocasio-Cortez’s claim came as Gaza’s Health Ministry reported that more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli onslaught — a tally that experts believe is “vastly underestimated.”

Since then, Democrats have effectively co-opted and watered down the term “ceasefire” to quell outrage over the Biden administration’s role in enabling the genocide. While human rights advocates are calling for an end to Israeli bombings, some Democrats redefined “ceasefire” to effectively refer to a hostage exchange. For the Biden administration and its allies, the ultimate goal is to secure a deal with Saudi Arabia that legitimizes Israel and to oversee an Arab proxy force to run Gaza, a force to be armed and trained by the U.S.

For human rights advocates, the celebrations of the administration’s mealy-mouthed approach to a ceasefire don’t pass muster.

“Apparently it passes as an act of great courage for the Democratic Party to have allowed a conversation about the human rights situation in Gaza to take place,” Whitson said. “I’m very happy that that conversation took place, but I am deeply embarrassed that this is something that is seen as a great measure of progress. Ultimately, we are beyond conversations. Everybody knows what needs to happen. What needs to happen is an immediate ceasefire and an immediate arms embargo.”

The response to Ocasio-Cortez’s mention of Gaza at the convention reflects polling indicating that a significant majority of Democrats nationwide support an end to the violence, said El-Tayyab, a ceasefire advocate himself.

“Policymakers must move beyond rhetoric,” he said, “and work to leverage U.S. military and diplomatic support for Israel to compel [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s government to protect civilians and finally reach a ceasefire deal.”