Cornell socialist leaders led nearly 2,000 people in singing “from the river to the sea” at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Ithaca turnout rally, a phrase the House called antisemitic.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took the stage Sunday at a “Students vs. Billionaires” town hall in downtown Ithaca, New York, after Cornell University Young Democratic Socialists of America co-chairs warmed up a standing-room-only crowd with anti-Israel slogans.
The New York Post reported that co-chairs Mina Petrova and Zoe Reisman led the audience in singing “from the river to the sea” and declaring “long live the student intifada” inside the Ithaca Downtown Conference Center. The event was billed by AOC’s campaign as part of an effort to boost turnout in Democratic strongholds ahead of the November election.
Roughly 2,000 people packed the hall. The Bronx-Queens congresswoman, a Democratic Socialist, used the moment to hit Cornell over what she cast as a crackdown on student protesters and free speech.
In 2024, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a resolution declaring the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” antisemitic and hateful. Critics say the motto points to the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea as a call for the eradication of Israel and its people. Ocasio-Cortez voted against that resolution.
That vote sits uneasily beside the scene her own turnout event produced. The same slogan filled the room while organizers framed the night as Democratic mobilization upstate.
Petrova did not soften the rhetoric. Speaking to applause, she cast Cornell itself as the enemy.
Mina Petrova said:
"Cornell is fundamentally a capitalist institution that prioritizes billionaires and profit over students and community and is controlled by CEO trustees that are profiting off of genocide and war,"
Reisman joined her in leading the chants. The host mix included the student activist group More Perfect University alongside AOC’s campaign operation.
Ocasio-Cortez answered with a broad defense of protest power. She tied Palestine activism to workplace fights and other disputes, casting institutional pushback as the first danger that must be met.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said:
"Whether it’s the issue about Palestine or many others. Whether it’s about people trying to fire those who are forming a union in their workplace, whether it’s people trying to speak up about a number of different issues, we have to respond to that first crackdown,"
She added a numbers argument aimed at the room.
Ocasio-Cortez also told the crowd:
"When we come out in numbers, they cannot take us all,"
The message fit a familiar lane for the congresswoman, who first broke through by defeating Queens Democratic boss Joe Crowley in 2018 during the last major Democratic midterm surge. Her Ithaca stop extended that brand of campus-aligned politics into another election cycle.
It also tracks a wider pattern in which Ocasio-Cortez has renewed Democratic Socialists of America ties while the party’s left wing pushes for more influence.
Gov. Kathy Hochul had been slated to appear with Ocasio-Cortez earlier Sunday in Ithaca. She backed out. A governor’s office spokesperson said the cancellation “was due to the nor’easter hitting New York City.” Hochul had no public events that Sunday.
Weather or not, the result was a room defined by campus socialist leadership rather than a shared ticket with the state’s Democratic governor. The chants came before AOC spoke, setting the tone for a night sold as ordinary midterm turnout work.
That gap matters for voters who hear “Democratic stronghold” and expect a standard party event. What they got was YDSA co-chairs leading “long live the student intifada” inside a conference center packed for a sitting member of Congress.
AOC’s upstate swing put a national figure next to local socialist organizers who treat Cornell as a “capitalist institution” and describe trustees as profiting from war. The congresswoman’s free-speech frame treated protest pressure as the priority. The House’s 2024 judgment on the river-to-the-sea slogan ran the other way, and she opposed it.
Her own campaign still cast the stop as turnout mechanics ahead of November. The contrast is plain: one side of the Democratic brand sells get-out-the-vote in safe territory; the warm-up act sells eliminationist slogans the House already flagged.
Similar energy has fueled talk far beyond Ithaca. DSA activists have eyed AOC for a presidential run and other 2028 contests, keeping her brand tied to the same activist networks that ran the chants.
None of that required new legislation or arrests at the conference center. It required only a microphone, a packed hall, and party machinery willing to treat the night as normal mobilization.
Ocasio-Cortez has stayed close to that lane even as speculation about higher office grows. Reporting on how she quietly rejoined the Democratic Socialists of America after a long lapse shows the institutional tie is not a one-off campus photo op.
Inside the party left, that project is not friction-free. Democratic Socialists have fought internally over 2028 endorsements while her name stays at the center of the argument.
For now, the Ithaca record is straightforward. AOC headlined a students-versus-billionaires town hall. Cornell YDSA leaders opened with “from the river to the sea” and “long live the student intifada.” She spoke about crackdowns and crowd size. Hochul stayed away. The House had already called the slogan hateful. She had already voted no.
Democratic voters heading into another midterm can decide whether that is the coalition they intend to reward, and whether a party that needs broad support can keep treating eliminationist chants as just another warm-up act.
