What a Twitter fight between AOC and Jared Moskowitz over Israel reveals about the Democrats

On Wednesday evening, Democratic Representatives Jared Moskowitz of Florida and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez got into a social media feud.

The tiff began when Moskowitz, who is Jewish, quote-tweeted a statement from Senator Bernie Sanders condemning the fact that the Senate passed a massive foreign aid package to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan without a vote on an amendment Sanders proposed. That amendment would have required the United States to not give unfettered aid to Israel.

“Bernie, now do antisemitism,” Moskowitz tweeted. “Why so quiet?”

Moskowitz’s implication was fairly clear: Sanders, who is also Jewish and who once lived on a kibbutz in Israel, supposedly did not care about his fellow Jewish Americans as many of them fear rising antisemitism.

Ocasio-Cortez came to the defence of Sanders, her political mentor, noting how his family was killed in the Holocaust.

“He and many other Jewish leaders deserve better than to be treated this way. This is shameful,” she wrote.

In response, Moskowitz tweeted that he also had family members who died in the Holocaust and said that was why he voted to provide aid to Israel and Gaza. “We see each other at work,” he added. “We are both better than doing this here.”

Ocasio-Cortez responded by asking why Moskowitz liked a tweet from comedian Michael Rapaport telling Ocasio-Cortez to “f**k off.”

The tense exchange showed just how much Israel’s war in Gaza has divided House Democrats.

Ocasio-Cortez and Moskowitz are allies in many ways. Both are a breed of media-literate younger Democrats and prolific tweeters who know how to needle Republicans.

On the Oversight Committee, they serve as part of what ranking Democrat Jamie Raskin dubs the “Truth Squad,” the coterie of Democrats