Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pledged to oppose any future military aid to Israel, including defensive weaponry, during a New York City Democratic Socialists of America forum held Tuesday evening. Her promise comes as the political organization has consistently pressed the congresswoman on her past votes on the issue over the years.
According to City & State, which obtained a recording of the virtual members-only forum, Ocasio-Cortez was asked if she would support an arms embargo on Israel. “I have not once ever voted to authorize funding to Israel, and I will never,” Ocasio-Cortez responded.
The congresswoman continued, “The Israeli government should be able to finance their own weapons if they seek to arm themselves.”
Ocasio-Cortez was then posed a follow-up question, with a DSA member asking her, “If the moment presents itself in Congress, will you commit to voting ‘no’ for any spending on arms for Israel, including so-called ‘defensive capabilities’?”
In response, Ocasio-Cortez said, “Yes.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s embrace of this stance will likely have widespread implications in the Democratic Party writ large as members’ positions toward Israel and U.S. funding have begun to shift since the start of the war in Gaza in 2023. Politico reported last month that several prospective 2028 presidential candidates like Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey and California governor Gavin Newsom have said they will refuse donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, a pro-Israel lobbying group that has become a key political player.
For Ocasio-Cortez, whom many have floated as a possible progressive candidate for the presidency next cycle and beyond, this definitive statement would likely ease concerns for many on the left who have questioned her past votes on the House related to U.S. military funding to Israel. In 2021, Ocasio-Cortez voted “present” on a bill to fund the Iron Dome, Israel’s air-defense system, in an emotional vote that prompted tears from the congresswoman on the House floor. The measure passed overwhelmingly with a 420-9 vote, with two members voting present.
Ocasio-Cortez explained her vote in a message to her constituents in the state’s 14th Congressional District, saying that while she was opposed to the bill’s “substance,” the vote itself was rushed and did not allow for proper consideration of the issue. “Yes, I wept. I wept at the complete lack of care for the human beings that are impacted by these decisions, I wept at an institution choosing a path of maximum volatility and minimum consideration for its own political convenience. And I wept at the complete lack of regard I often feel our party has to its most vulnerable and endangered members and communities — because the death threats and dangerous vitriol we’d inevitably receive by rushing such a sensitive, charged, and under-considered vote weren’t worth delaying it for even a few hours to help us do the work necessary to open a conversation of understanding,” she wrote.
Last year, Ocasio-Cortez voted against an amendment put forth by then–Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, which would have cut $500 million in military spending from the United States to Israel for its missile defense programs. The proposed change to the House appropriations bill ultimately failed to advance, receiving only six votes in favor of its addition.
On social media, the congresswoman explained that she opposed the amendment because it did nothing to halt military aid to Israel while limiting “defensive Iron Dome capacities while allowing the actual bombs killing Palestinians to continue.”
“I have long stated that I do not believe that adding to the death count of innocent victims to this war is constructive to its end. That is a simple and clear difference of opinion that has long been established,” she said.
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