Ocasio-Cortez raises AIPAC ire over effort to tie Israel aid to annexation

It is about time someone challenged the unconditional support of Israel despite that countries repression of the Palestinian people. Israel has treated the Palestinian People as second class citizens and has created a kind of apartheid system where those people can only live in a few places.- SJ Otto

“Progressive lawmakers warn annexation ‘would lay the groundwork for Israel becoming an apartheid state.”

From Politico:

A dozen Democratic lawmakers have signed on to a hotly debated letter spearheaded by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that calls for placing conditions on aid to Israel if it moves forward with plans to unilaterally annex parts of the West Bank or continues related actions, according to a copy obtained by POLITICO.

The letter, parts of which were previously leaked to the media, was condemned Monday by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee as harmful to America’s interests before the statement or its signers were finalized.

“Should the Israeli government continue down this path, we will work to ensure non-recognition of annexed territories as well as pursue legislation that conditions the $3.8 billion in U.S. military funding to Israel to ensure that U.S. taxpayers are not supporting annexation in any way,” Ocasio-Cortez’s letter reads. “We will include human rights conditions and the withholding of funds for the offshore procurement of Israeli weapons equal to or exceeding the amount the Israeli government spends annually to fund settlements, as well as the policies and practices that sustain and enable them.”

The letter, addressed to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, also said that annexation “would actively harm prospects for a future in which all Israelis and Palestinians can live with full equality, human rights and dignity, and would lay the groundwork for Israel becoming an apartheid state, as your predecessor John Kerry warned in 2014.”

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