This is heady stuff, and she arrived on the political scene with a slate of progressive ideas, including calls for an end to US warmongering and universal healthcare for all citizens.
Even more notably, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a month ago, before her win, was tweeting that she opposed the US embassy move to Jerusalem, rampant Israeli human rights abuses, and what she termed Zionist “massacres” of the hapless Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
What’s remarkable is that, having opined as much, she actually won the primary election as a Democrat in a district full of Jewish voters against her incumbent, “”establishment” opponent. The win over Rep. Joe Crowly in the 14th Congressional District said quite a lot about her: that she appears smart, articulate and ever so refreshing to many people across the US -- especially those Democrats tired of same old who may realize that in the upcoming mid-term elections and later for the Presidency, the Democrats don’t have a good chance to take back control of the House nor to defeat Trump in 2020, who has already amassed and election war chest of $90 million to spend on his future reelection bid.
Ocasio-Cortez has frightened the US political establishment like few other candidates in recent memory, and brought smiles to the faces of many voters, especially those depressed for decades about US policies and actions in the Middle East. But already, interviewed extensively about her astounding win over Crowley, she is equivocating.
We don’t know to what extent and how exactly she has been threatened, but during an interview on face the Nation on prime-time television the impact of threats has become apparent. She claimed, for one thing, that her comments had been the comments of an “activist” and that now, she is no longer an “activist” (whatever that is exactly unless it simply denotes a person willing to tell the unvarnished truth) and that she is henceforth willing to “learn and evolve” (read “revise”) her former postures. While stating that she remains a supporter of the “two state” solution in Palestine, she clearly was a bit flustered when her interrogator, Margaret Hoover, asked her what she meant by the term “occupation” with respect to the illegal Zionist presence in the West Bank and the blockade of Gaza. She then said she “may not use the right words” to characterize the situation, and for her the entire matter is one of “human rights” and her own humanitarian concerns. She added that she firmly believes in Israel’s “right to exist” except that, just maybe she may believe, which went unstated, not under the kind of policies promoted by the current Israeli government.
Ocasio-Cortez’s “evolution” is sadly predictable since her recent success, however undesirable this is too many of those who remain “activists”. She is no doubt surprised that she did win, and loves all the media attention, but going forward no one knows whether she will remain or become a steadfast advocate and voice for sanity with regard to Middle East matters. But she so far remains a person whose views are at least healthier and more honest than most all her future, potential colleagues in Washington. Still, many wonder: what if she were a candidate willing to hold firm to her views when she was an “activist” even at the potential cost of her losing the election in November? No other candidate I am aware of has yet been willing to threaten their chances of election success by literally continuing to tell the unvarnished truth about “Israel” (and other concerns) and its blatant apartheid in Palestine.
And make no mistake, telling the truth about Israel is literally the cornerstone of truth telling generally about so many issues affecting the US: the widening gap between rich and poor in the US, the maddening and overwhelming influence of rich, selfish oligarchs on US foreign and domestic policies, the precarious US economy (where economic “growth” over the past decade has not been organic but merely the result of vast money printing by the Federal Reserve bank that has pumped up financial markets like never before), the lack of affordable healthcare for many Americans, the out of control spending for the benefit alone of the Military Industrial Complex and the enormous fiscal debts, and so much more that literally, some believe, threaten the future of a very divided US population.
Still, young Ocasio-Cortez is worth watching, and so are a handful of other rare candidates for the US Congress who are willing to tell more of the truth about the Mideast than ever before in recent decades. If, miraculously, enough pressure via truth telling is brought to bear to substantially change attitudes about the Zionist state in the US, and ultimately foment policy changes, however marginally, then this will, in turn, bring about changes even in attitudes about Iran and more revulsion against US sanctions on Iran and the abrogation of the JCPOA in May.
But change remains highly contingent on Iran’s leadership also addressing the desires of its own citizens for reform and avoiding gross instability inside Iran, which has been the primary aim of the Neocon infested Trump administration since inception. One cannot stress this enough, this requirement that Iran’s leadership show wisdom and flexibility. Patience remains key as always, too.
MNA/TT
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