Taking the stage at the Munich Security Conference this weekend, two prominent progressive lawmakers rumored to be eyeing presidential runs in 2028, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), used the opportunity to bash Israel.

Criticism of Israel isn’t new for either lawmaker, but taking place on one of the most prominent foreign policy stages in the world, their remarks are a sign of the anti-Israel current that continues to course through the Democratic Party, particularly on its left flank.

Ocasio-Cortez, calling for the U.S. to condition aid to Israel, repeated accusations that Israel committed genocide in Gaza.

“The United States has an obligation to uphold its own laws, particularly the Leahy laws,” Ocasio-Cortez said, referring to laws that require suspension of aid to military units engaged in war crimes. “And I think that personally, that the idea of completely unconditional aid, no matter what one does, does not make sense. I think it enabled a genocide in Gaza. And I think that we have thousands of women and children dead … that was completely avoidable.”

Adding insult to injury for some observers, Ocasio-Cortez leveled the accusations in Munich, the site of Adolf Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch, which ultimately catalyzed his rise to power.

Ocasio-Cortez’s appearance at the conference was a foreign policy test for the congresswoman — one she ended up struggling to pass. Despite studying under the tutelage of Matt Duss, a former foreign policy advisor to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), she faced accusations that she remains unprepared to tackle global issues, accentuated by her stumbling response when asked whether the U.S. should come to the defense of Taiwan if it was attacked by China. (The New York Times headline: “Ocasio-Cortez Offers a Working Class Vision in Munich, with Some Stumbles”)

At the end of the weekend, Ocasio-Cortez griped that her gaffes and perceived presidential ambitions overshadowed the message she intended to deliver, denying that the trip had anything to do with a potential presidential run. Several congressional allies jumped in to back up Ocasio-Cortez.

Murphy, in a separate session, also continued the theme of Democrats’ Israel-bashing. He questioned the reality of the ceasefire in Gaza, emphasizing Israeli violations of the ceasefire agreement while not mentioning Hamas’ continued violations.

“Well, is there a ceasefire? Hundreds of Gazans have been killed since the announcement. Israel still reserves the right and, in fact, is potentially making plans to go back in with a new, significant, deadly ground invasion,” Murphy said, also criticizing the Trump administration’s Board of Peace for failing to include European allies and accusing the administration of focusing on public announcements over substance. 

Hamas has also repeatedly violated the ceasefire agreement and some of the Israeli strikes have come in response to those violations, or have targeted individual Hamas leaders. And the terrorist group continues to refuse to adhere to one of the basic requirements of the agreement, that it disarm.

Several other potential Democratic presidential contenders also attended the conference, including Govs. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Gavin Newsom of California, Sens. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. Whitmer, too, faced accusations that she’s unprepared for the world stage following a hesitant response on Ukraine policy.

Meanwhile, back home, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), another potential 2028 contender, has been fending off accusations of antisemitism over his use of the term “Epstein class” to refer broadly to political and economic elites affiliated with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who was Jewish.

The case, and disclosures of files related to it pushed by Khanna and other lawmakers, has generated a slew of antisemitic conspiracy theories, including largely unfounded accusations that Epstein was acting as an agent of Israel.

In a Washington Post op-ed last week, Matthew Schmitz, the editor of Compact magazine, said that the “Epstein class” phrase, which Khanna said he coined and popularized, “can be taken as an association of exploitative wealth with Jewish identity.”

Khanna responded, saying on X, “[Schmitz] believes that my coining the phrase Epstein class & [Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA)] using it subsequently in a speech is ‘antisemitic.’ I reject conspiracy theories. But we must call out rich and powerful men who act above the law. Democrats should campaign against the Epstein class.”
Khanna’s also facing criticism for a House floor speech and online comments in which he characterized four men as “likely incriminated” in Epstein’s crimes who turned out to be unrelated individuals included in police lineups related to the case.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has been receiving briefings from Matt Duss, an outspoken critic of the U.S.-Israel alliance and former foreign policy advisor to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), as she prepares for a high-profile appearance at the Munich Security Conference next week, The New York Times reported on Friday.

Duss, who is now executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, a left-wing think tank, has long been a prominent detractor of U.S. relations with Israel. He has called for blocking aid to Israel and has expressed opposition to renewing the 10-year memorandum of understanding, which is set to expire in 2028 and currently provides $3.8 billion in military funding to Israel annually.

He has also cast doubt on the Abraham Accords, accusing the normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab countries of using “racist logic” that is “premised on the perpetual repression of Palestinians” and helping to fuel Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks. Duss has frequently called Israel’s resulting war in Gaza a genocide.

“I don’t think a Democrat can be nominated in ‘28 without acknowledging that it is a genocide,” Duss suggested in an interview with The Financial Times last September.

While it is no secret that Ocasio-Cortez largely shares such views, her decision to seek guidance from Duss and others at his organization, as the Times reported, provides insight into her efforts to burnish her progressive foreign policy credentials amid speculation that she could run for higher office in 2028.

The congresswoman, who was first elected in 2018, has struggled to articulate her views on the Middle East, even as she has positioned herself as a leading opponent of U.S. aid to Israel in response to the war in Gaza.

In an interview shortly before she assumed office, Ocasio-Cortez faced scrutiny for stumbling through responses about Israel, acknowledging she was “not the expert on geopolitics on this issue.” In 2021, she likewise strained to clarify her own positions on the region during a rare instance of public engagement with a mainstream Jewish group in New York City.

Months later, she was seen weeping on the House floor while switching her vote from “no” to “present” on a widely approved measure to provide Israel with $1 billion in supplemental funding for its Iron Dome missile-defense system — a decision for which she later voiced regret.

In Munich next week, Ocasio-Cortez is expected to speak about populist political movements and the United States’ role on the global stage, according to the Times. 

“She is someone who is engaged with parts of the world that are often not represented in Munich,” Duss told the publication.

The Center for International Policy, founded in 1975, says on its website that it seeks to “advance a more peaceful, just, and sustainable U.S. approach to foreign policy.” The organization has previously transferred grant funds to the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, an isolationist think tank that has promoted sympathetic positions on Iran, according to 2022 tax filings.

Duss did not respond to a request for comment on Friday, nor did a spokesperson for Ocasio-Cortez.

Before Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, there was Jon Ossoff. In the spring of 2017, the lanky then-30-year-old became the face of “the resistance” almost by accident.

The Georgia Democrat ran in the first special election of the Trump administration. The race was treated as a key barometer of public opinion. It became the most expensive special election in American history, attracting roughly $55 million in spending by both sides in a traditionally Republican district in suburban Atlanta.

Ossoff almost won the district outright in the first round of voting, falling just short of the 50% necessary for victory, before being narrowly defeated by Republican Karen Handel in a runoff.

Two years after that loss, Ossoff is now mounting his second bid for elected office and has thrown his hat in the ring to challenge incumbent Republican David Perdue for the United States Senate.

In an interview with Jewish Insider, Ossoff framed his run as a crusade against Washington corruption and an extension of his career as an investigative journalist who had a colleague murdered while investigating a scandal in African soccer. 

The message is an extension of how the Georgia Democrat initially sold himself to voters in 2017 before shifting his focus to non-partisan issues including government waste and turning Atlanta into “the Silicon Valley of the South.” But it takes an added edge during the ongoing impeachment crisis in Washington. (Ossoff has come out in favor of an impeachment inquiry).

Ossoff told Jewish Insider, “my first act in the Senate will be to co-sponsor a constitutional amendment to repeal the Citizens United decision. He denounced a political system awash in “dark money and secret anonymous political spending” and described Perdue as “the embodiment of Washington corruption.”

On foreign policy, the Democrat denounced the 2018 decision by the Trump administration to withdraw from the Iran deal, calling it “a reckless and thoughtless mistake by withdrawing unilaterally from the nuclear deal.” In Ossoff’s view, “it has put Iran back on path towards nuclear weapons development with no clear diplomatic strategy and escalated chances of war in the Gulf. There are no clear off ramps for either side as tensions continue to escalate and it has been deeply irresponsible.”

A former legislative assistant for longtime Georgia Democratic congressman Hank Johnson, Ossoff argued that the United States should “recommit to a multilateral approach to Iran nuclear program… to restrict uranium enrichment and ensure that there are penetrating IAEA and international inspections of their nuclear facilities.” He added, “the proliferation of nuclear weapons anywhere is a threat to people anywhere, and in the Senate preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon will be a top priority.

When asked if Iran possessing a nuclear weapon would present an existential threat to the United States, Ossoff answered, “any adversarial power that has nuclear weapons and ability to deliver them either via ICBM or by trafficking nuclear technologies to non-state actors poses a critical threat to us and an existential threat to allies in Middle East and Europe.”

He also strongly criticized the Saudi regime under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “Our alliance with Saudi Arabia has compromised us ethically and has compromised our foreign policy,” said Ossoff. “We should cease supporting the Saudi war in Yemen and distance ourselves from regime that executes political dissidents, executes people for their sexuality and that brutally murders journalists.”

Ossoff, who is hoping to be only the second Jewish American from the South directly elected to Senate, told JI his “Jewish heritage has influenced my worldview profoundly… My relatives who are Holocaust survivors, my ancestors who fled pogroms in Eastern Europe, I think I have a heightened awareness of dangers of authoritarianism and antisemitism.”

He argued that, if elected, he could play “a constructive role in supporting negotiations” between Israel and the Palestinians as “a Jewish-American United States senator with a strong background in foreign policy and defense policy.”

However, Ossoff was “deeply pessimistic that any of the parties including the United States are serious about pursuing [a two-state solution].” In his view, “the two-state solution is on life support.”

Ossoff argued for a stronger emphasis on human rights in U.S. foreign policy. “Foreign policy is rightly about balancing values and interests and America throughout its history has too often, in my view, neglected its values in support of perceived interests,” said the Georgia Democrat. However, he noted, “there are U.S. officials around the world and throughout our history who have come to the aid of those facing persecution because they rightly understand that is a core part of national identity.”

Ossoff, who raised $800,000 in the three weeks after declaring his candidacy in mid-September,  still has to win the Democratic nomination for the opportunity to run against Perdue next year. He will face more than half a dozen other candidates including Teresa Tomlinson, the former mayor of Columbus, Georgia, in the May primary.