Ocasio-Cortez Claims Her Comments On Israel Were Doctored — They Were Not

Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claimed on Monday that comments she made in July regarding the Israeli “occupation of Palestine” were doctored and circulated in the media.

“The ‘Firing Line’ [interview got] doctored and then the doctored video was the one that ended up on Fox News, and then, like, everyone just sees the doctored version instead of the actual exchange,” Ocasio-Cortez told The Intercept, referring to a July 2018 interview with Margaret Hoover.

Ocasio-Cortez faced backlash after the PBS interview aired for not being able to defend the positions she promulgates regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“I also think that what people are starting to see at least in the occupation of Palestine is just an increasing crisis of humanitarian condition,” Ocasio-Cortez said in July. “And that to me is just where I tend to come from on this issue.”

Hoover followed up, questioning what the self-proclaimed socialist meant by “occupation of Palestine.”

“Oh, um, I think what I meant, is, like, the settlements that are increasing in some of these area and places where, um, difficulty and access to, um, their housing and homes,” Ocasio-Cortez answered before conceding that she is “not the expert on geopolitics” on this issue.

Days after the interview aired, conservative commentator Allie Beth Stuckey created a mock interview where she juxtaposed herself asking questions against Ocasio-Cortez’s answers from the Firing Line interview.

Stuckey defended the satirical interview, but Ocasio-Cortez alleged that Republicans were faking videos of her comments because they were afraid of her and “can’t deal with reality.”

Ocasio-Cortez specifically claimed her comments about Israel were doctored, as first reported by The Daily Wire. However, the Stuckey’s parody interview mentions neither Israel nor Palestine — those comments only appear in the original Firing Line interview.