'From the river to the sea' – and silence from AOC

Controversial Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) is back in the news and in this case, that’s not necessarily a good thing. A recent campaign event featured the New York congresswoman at Cornell University, where organizers warmed up a crowd of roughly 2,000 people with one of the most controversial anti-Israel chants out there: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

And that wasn’t all. Cornell University Young Democratic Socialists of America leaders Mina Petrova and Zoe Reisman also declared, “Long live the student intifada,” before Ocasio-Cortez took the stage at the “Students vs. Billionaires” town hall in Ithaca, New York.

The chants occurred during the warm-up, before AOC came onstage but here’s what we do know: these were organizations helping host an event centered around her. She eventually addressed the same gathering, and her remarks did not denounce the rhetoric.

Instead, AOC went after Cornell for what she characterized as efforts to suppress political speech. “Whether it’s the issue about Palestine or many others,” she told the audience, “whether it’s about people trying to fire those who are forming a union in their workplace, whether it’s people trying to speak up about a number of different issues, we have to respond to that first crackdown.”

Here’s a quick pro-tip for her: When the crowd assembled to see you starts chanting “from the river to the sea,” that’s usually a pretty good time to say something. That antisemitic phrase isn’t some random slogan somebody cooked up in a dorm room last Tuesday.

The “river” is the Jordan River. The “sea” is the Mediterranean Sea. What sits between them? Israel, along with the West Bank – biblically known as Judea and Samaria – and Gaza.

That geography is why Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League, argue that the slogan calls for eliminating Israel as a Jewish state. The ADL says the phrase has been used by Hamas and other groups seeking Israel’s destruction and describes it as denying Jewish self-determination. This isn’t hard to figure out.

Hamas itself has used language about liberating Palestine “from the river to the sea,” and critics understandably hear the phrase very differently after the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre. For many Jews, this isn’t an abstract academic argument. They hear a demand for a Palestine encompassing territory where the sovereign Jewish state currently exists.

AOC knows better. She had every chance to draw a line at Cornell. She didn’t. In the days since, she hasn’t stepped forward to say she wishes she had denounced the chant. Sometimes silence speaks volumes. This was one of them.

Congress has weighed in on all of this as well. In April 2024, the House passed a resolution declaring that “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is antisemitic and should be condemned. The vote wasn’t close. It passed 377-44, with 162 Democrats joining 215 Republicans. So what about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? She voted no. Color me shocked.

That piece of history makes what happened at Cornell more politically significant. This wasn’t the first time AOC had been given an opportunity to distance herself from the phrase. Congress literally put the question before her. She rejected the resolution condemning it.

Then, more than two years later, activists helping host one of her political events led a packed audience in that exact same chant, coupled with “long live the student intifada.” Once AOC took the microphone, she had another opportunity to draw a line. She didn’t.

Let’s make one thing very clear: AOC is a politician who is rarely shy about telling Americans exactly what she thinks. Now, her supporters can counter that she didn't participate in the chant and shouldn’t automatically be held responsible for everything said before she entered the room. That’s fair.

However, presidential politics – or Senate politics – tends to make these moments matter even more. AOC has openly left the door open to a 2028 presidential run or a Senate campaign. Asked in August about running for president, she said she was concentrating on the midterms but added, “I haven’t ruled out the possibility.”

Her current tour through upstate New York is already being watched closely for signs of broader statewide or national ambitions. One of the two will happen. It’s just a matter of when and what form.

So eventually the question becomes unavoidable: Where exactly does Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stand? We know her views on Palestinian rights or on criticizing Israel but does she believe Israel should continue to exist as a Jewish state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea? If she does, why not simply say that “from the river to the sea” goes too far? I’m afraid of the answer.

It’s an answer she will ultimately be forced to give, whether as a candidate for the U.S. Senate in New York or as a Democrat running for president of the United States.