National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) called Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) and Jamaal Bowman (D., N.Y.) “enemies” in a Wednesday statement after the progressive lawmakers criticized Manhattan protests of an exhibit raising awareness for victims of the October 7 attack.
“Liberation will not come from the ballot box,” the group said, but from the “collective development and revolutionary action of the masses.”
Protesters gathered outside the Nova Music Festival Exhibition last week, lighting smoke bombs and chanting “Long Live the Intifada,” among other slogans. The exhibit includes displays and artifacts to recreate Hamas’s October 7 attack on music festival attendees. Ocasio-Cortez and Bowman condemned the protests the next day.
“The callousness, dehumanization and targeting of Jews on display at last night’s protest outside the Nova Festival exhibit was atrocious antisemitism – plain and simple,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X.
National SJP blasted the two lawmakers on Wednesday, calling their comments “smears” and saying they only “have utility insofar as they leverage their positions within the belly of the beast.”
“These elected officials are not conduits of popular power,” the statement read. “They do not share the interests of the nationally oppressed or the working classes. They are not our path to victory.”
Bowman lost his primary race by double-digits on Tuesday after accusing Israel of committing “genocide” and calling reports of Hamas terrorists raping Israeli women “propaganda” and lies.”
The race drew more than $14 million in spending from a super PAC aligned with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Progressives have blamed the outside money for Bowman’s loss. At a weekend rally, Ocasio-Cortez introduced Bowman, who told supporters, “We’re all going to show f***ing AIPAC the power of the motherf***ing South Bronx.”
Days after the October 7 attack, a National Students for Justice in Palestine social media post called for students to “mobilize” for a “Day of Resistance.” The post featured a paraglider, a reference to paragliders used by Hamas terrorists during the attack.
“This is what it means to Free Palestine,” the caption read, “not just slogans and rallies, but armed confrontation with the oppressors.”
The post has since been taken down.