Ocasio-Cortez Campaign Event Features Anti-Israel Chants

A campaign event featuring Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in Ithaca, New York, included attendees chanting anti-Israel slogans. The event, held Sunday at the Ithaca Downtown Conference Center and attended by approximately 2,000 people, was organized to encourage Democratic turnout ahead of the midterm elections.

During a portion of the event billed as "Students vs. Billionaires," the co-chairs of the Cornell University Young Democratic Socialists of America, Mina Petrova and Zoe Reisman, led the crowd in chanting "from the river to the sea" and "long live the student intifada." Petrova stated that Cornell is a "capitalist institution that prioritizes billionaires and profit over students and community and is controlled by CEO trustees that are profiting off of genocide and war."

The event was co-hosted with the student activist organization More Perfect University. Ocasio-Cortez's campaign described the town hall as part of an effort to "boost turnout in Democratic strongholds ahead of the November election."

Ocasio-Cortez, who is campaigning upstate, addressed the crowd, referencing issues such as "the issue about Palestine" and speaking out against what she described as suppressed free speech for student protestors. "When we come out in numbers, they cannot take us all," she said.

The phrase "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" has been widely condemned, with the U.S. House of Representatives passing a resolution in 2024 that declared the slogan antisemitic. Critics argue that the phrase, which refers to the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, calls for the elimination of Israel. Ocasio-Cortez voted against that resolution.

Governor Kathy Hochul had been scheduled to appear at an event with Ocasio-Cortez earlier on Sunday in Ithaca, but her office stated the appearance was canceled due to a nor'easter impacting New York City, despite Hochul not having any public events scheduled for that day.