A group of pro-Palestinian protesters on Monday accosted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and her fiancé outside a movie theater in Brooklyn and demanded that she call Israel’s offensive in Gaza a “genocide.”
Video obtained by Fox News Digital shows the protesters, phones in hand, approaching the congresswoman outside the Alabama Drafthouse.
“You refuse to call it a genocide,” one of the protesters can be heard saying, to which Ocasio-Cortez fires back: “I need you to understand that this is not okay.”
“It’s not okay that there’s a genocide happening and you’re not actively against it,” the protester says.
“You’re lying!” Ocasio-Cortez shouts back.
The video shows the protesters following her down the escalator, continually berating her for not labeling the war a “genocide.”
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“If you can’t say it, just say it. Literally. We’re just talking to you like normal people. Just say it’s a genocide. Just say it. Over 30,000 people are dead AOC, you can’t just say it for once?” another protester shouts, citing figures from the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. “Just say the word, that’s it. That’s all we want you to say.”
The protesters chase her and her fiancé, Riley Roberts, outside the building. At one point, Roberts pleads with the protesters to stop as they continue following the couple down the sidewalk.
One of the protesters asks whether Ocasio-Cortez is concerned her comments would “go viral.”
A visibly angry Ocasio-Cortez tells the protesters that they’re going to clip the video so that her comments are “completely out of context.”
She then appears to concede that Israel’s actions constitute a genocide.
“I already said that it was. And y’all are just gonna pretend that it wasn’t. Over and over again. It’s f—ed up man. And you’re not helping these people. You’re not helping them,” Ocasio-Cortez says.
The protesters, clearly unassuaged and dissatisfied with her answer, continue chasing the couple down the sidewalk. One of them mentions her past comments, condemning the Armenian genocide.
“Why won’t you say it in front of everybody, why us?”
Fox News Digital has reached out to Ocasio-Cortez’s office for comment.
Ocasio-Cortez has repeatedly condemned Israel’s retaliation after the Oct. 7 massacre, in which Hamas militants killed 1,200 civilians, injured hundreds more, and took around 250 hostages.
She has called for a ceasefire and suggested the U.S. “conditioning aid, if not cutting aid to the Netanyahu government.”
Just weeks after the Oct. 7 attack, Ocasio-Cortez accused Israel of committing war crimes, while qualifying that she was not defending Hamas.
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