Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez seems to set off a firestorm every time she goes near the issue of Israel-Palestine. It happened again last week.
AOC had agreed to speak at an event hosted by Americans for Peace Now commemorating 25 years since the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. After hearing many complaints form Palestinians and their supporters, she withdrew.
Whatever the politics around this, AOC’s actions had the welcome effect of sparking a discussion about the real legacy of Yitzhak Rabin, now that a quarter century has passed since his murder. That legacy is all too often whitewashed, with the view of Rabin from a Palestinian perspective erased. But raising the question, as so often happens around this issue, leads to a polarized debate, with one side praising Rabin and the other denigrating him, with little room for the sort of nuance that is crucial for understanding any political leader. I try to cut through that in my latest piece for Responsible Statecraft.