AOC Criticizes Move To Label War In Ukraine — But Not Gaza — A Genocide

A bipartisan resolution declaring that Russia is committing genocide in its nearly 3-year-old war in Ukraine has left one supporter of the Palestinians in Gaza calling it “problematic.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told HuffPost that if the war in Ukraine is considered a genocide, then Israel’s brutal military campaigns in Gaza since Oct. 27, 2023, following the Hamas-led attack against Israel, certainly should be as well.

“If one were to make that case for Ukraine, they cannot not make that case for Palestine and for Palestinians,” she said.

The resolution, sponsored by Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), has the support of Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), the House GOP’s most prominent Ukraine supporter, as well as three other Republicans. Eight House Democrats aside from Cohen also signed on as co-sponsors.

The bill says Russia has committed “extensive, systematic, and flagrant atrocities against the people of Ukraine,” including actions that would meet the criteria for genocide under a 1948 international treaty signed by the United States.

It was introduced Monday, the first full working day of the new 119th Congress, and only a day before Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said anti-government Rapid Support Forces in Sudan were committing genocide there by systematically murdering men and boys and targeting women and girls with rape and sexual violence.

“Those same militias have targeted fleeing civilians, murdering innocent people escaping conflict, and prevented remaining civilians from accessing lifesaving supplies. Based on this information, I have now concluded that members of the RSF and allied militias have committed genocide in Sudan,” Blinken said in announcing the formal determination of genocide.

The State Department has not made a similar determination about Israel’s war in Gaza or Russia’s in Ukraine, though it has said Russian forces have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity there.

International organization Human Rights Watch said in a December reportthat Israel’s war in Gaza has resulted in dramatic shortages of water for Palestinians that likely killed thousands of people and constituted crimes against humanity and genocide.

“Water is essential for human life, yet for over a year the Israeli government has deliberately denied Palestinians in Gaza the bare minimum they need to survive,” Tirana Hassan, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said when the report was released.

In a social media post when the report was released, Oren Marmorstein, spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, said Human Rights Watch was “once more spreading its blood libels in order to promote its anti-Israel propaganda” and that Israel had facilitated food and water getting to Gaza.

A United Nations special committee and the International Criminal Court at The Hague have both raised the question of war crimes and genocide in Gaza in separate actions.

The U.N. committee said in November Israel’s actions in Gaza were “consistent with the characteristics of genocide,” citing mass casualties and “life-threatening conditions” imposed on Gazans.

The ICC has issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ex-defense minister for alleged crimes against humanity. It has also issued a warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes in connection with the alleged abduction of Ukrainian children.

In Gaza, more than 45,000 civilians have been killed since the war began there, according to Gazan officials. In Ukraine, the U.N. has estimated at least 10,000 civilians have been killed and at least 18,500 injured.

Under the 1948 treaty, any of the following five acts done to destroy a group — whether in whole or in part — meet the criteria for genocide: killing; causing bodily harm to or inflicting “conditions of life” meant to destroy members of the group; imposing measures to prohibit births among the group; and forcibly transferring children from that group.

Ukraine advocates say not just one but all of those conditions have been met in Ukraine, where Russian forces — which have captured about one-fifth of the country — have bombed civilian targets, tortured and murdered individual civilians, used rape as a weapon of war, bombed the energy infrastructure in winter and kidnapped thousands of children.

Wilson said the actions by Hamas that provoked Israel to invade Gaza were the distinction between the situations in Ukraine and Gaza.

“There’s no comparison at all. That’s apples and oranges,” Wilson told HuffPost.

“Any actions by Israel are in self-defense. Everything relates to rocket attacks from Gaza,” he added.

Ocasio-Cortez said she was undecided whether genocide was happening in Ukraine, though she would not be “reflexively in opposition” to that label.

“I don’t want to take a position immediately. I want to make sure that I’m very well vested in the facts,” she said.

“I took my decision to call it that in Gaza very seriously, pored over a lot of data before I made that statement, and I would want to afford this issue the same respect,” she added.

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