A Bronx office of the US House member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was vandalized early on Monday, according to New York City police, who say they are investigating.
The vandalism occurred after Ocasio-Cortez on Friday voted against a defense spending bill amendment authored by the Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia that would have eliminated funding for the system protecting Israel from missiles.
Her vote on Greene’s amendment prompted the Democratic Socialists of America to issue a statement accusing Ocasio-Cortez of backing Israel’s “eliminationist campaign against the Palestinian people”.
AOC said she wants to send weapons to Israel using American taxpayer dollars so Israel can keep committing genocide.
Isn’t that the exact opposite of what she said in your screenshot? Support for defensive equipment and against offensive weapons.
Let’s send defensive weapons to nazi germany during the holocaust.
“Defensive” as Israel invades and occupies multiple countries.
The distinction between defensive and offensive is meaningless.
I like this example. So I think providing defenses for Nazi Germany would be much more egregious, but I think I get what you’re saying.
Here’s the difference, Nazi Germany did not have these defenses to begin with, so providing them later is expressing support for their mission since those defenses can also be given to the people that Germany is attacking instead and still achieve the goal of keeping innocent people alive. Given that choice, I don’t think the aid should be going to the aggressors. But if given the choice to provide them to everyone? Then yes, everyone should be defended. Let them shoot blanks at each other and beat their chests about it.
With Israel, the iron dome is already set up to protect them alone. You can’t expect to give these same resources to Palestine and expect them to be useful, especially since so much of the killing is happening through foot soldiers. Incoming missiles strikes on Israel have also been heavily ramped up due to the presence of these defenses, so taking them away would be akin to protecting someone from the rain by holding a bucket over their head to catch the water, then dumping the contents on them afterwards.
The counterarguments I can think of are
- Not having to worry about defending yourself means you can instead allocate those resources on attacking others
- Iran doesn’t actually intend to kill lots of civilians, so they would ramp down their missile strike in accordance to the iron dome’s capabilities and save on resources
Which is very fair. Providing defence assistance is also bad. So this whole bill was designed to be a distraction to divide Palestine’s supporters. Both options are bad. What I think we can all agree on is that not providing weapons will definitely be a net positive for everyone involved. Let’s talk about that instead.
Don’t let facts get in the way
