ZOA urges AOC to fire staffer for “false” and “hateful” remarks that come on the heels of a spike in violent attacks on Jews.
By World Israel News Staff
Jewish advocacy groups are calling for Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to fire her legislative assistant, who made a number of incendiary anti-Israel remarks on Instagram.
“Israel is a racist European ethnostate built on stolen land from its indigenous population,” declared Ocasio Cortez’s staff member Hussain Altamimi under a post titled “Let’s talk Palestine.”
The December post, to which Altamimi had added his own caption, read, “This reveals the principle underpinning Israeli apartheid: It’s not about where you’re born. It’s about whether you’re Jewish or non-Jewish”
“Your ethnicity determines your rights [and] level in the racial hierarchy. Israel is an exclusive ethnostate, established to serve one ethnic group at the expense of another,” the post concluded.
Zionist Organization of America president Morton Klein wrote in an open letter to Ocasio-Cortez that Altamimi’s comments were “false” and “hateful.”
In a reference to a string of violent incidents during May 2021’s Operation Guardian of the Walls Israel-Gaza clash, Klein noted that Altamimi’s “vitriolic posts are likely to add to the atmosphere of anti-Semitism and hatred that has fueled increasing, frightening, violent attacks on Jews in New York and throughout the United States.”
Klein also pointed out that the post accused Israel of committing apartheid, but ignored anti-Jewish policies that are enshrined in the laws of the Palestinian Authority.
“The Palestinian Authority states that no Jews will be allowed to live in their entity; condemns Arabs to death for selling property to Jews; and pays Arabs’ lifetime pensions to murder Jews and Americans,” he wrote.
“The P.A. also names schools, streets and sports teams after Jew-killers.”
Ocasio-Cortez has not publicly commented on Altamimi’s remarks, or if she plans to terminate the staffer.
Altamimi is the surname of a prominent Palestinian family that includes Ahlam Al-Tamimi, the female terrorist behind one of the most notorious suicide bombings of the Second Intifada.
Her cousin, Ahed Al-Tamimi, gained international notoriety as a teenager for a 2017 viral video in which she was seen slapping an Israeli soldier.
It’s unknown if Hussain Altamimi is a member of that family.