Ocasio-Cortez Campaign Denies Ties to Alleged Ex-Staffer Who Urged Attack on Jewish Students at New York School

The campaign of US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has denied any connection to a woman accused of making violent, antisemitic threats against a Brooklyn public high school with a large population of Jewish students.

Iman Abdul, 27, faces charges of making a terroristic threat, aggravated harassment, and endangering the welfare of a child, according to New York City police. Authorities allege Abdul posted a series of alarming social media messages last week that targeted the school community, using language that law enforcement officials described as “explicitly antisemitic” and “calling for violence.” The threats triggered heightened security protocols at the school and prompted swift condemnation from Jewish advocacy groups, who said the safety of students was at stake.

“If anyone needs a public school in NYC to attack for whatever reason … Lexus driving Israhell [sic] loving Zionisits [sic] all attend here,” read the since-deleted post, which included a screenshot from Google Maps of the high school’s location.

Abdul told StopAntisemitism on social media that she “never called for an attack on the school in the sense of mass organization or not even individual people attacking individuals.”

“That’s literally stupid,” she wrote. “I called for an attack on the school, the Zionist institution funded by our public dollars. We have every right to verbally attack the school.”

The New York Post, which first reported on the case, also said that Abdul had once worked as a youth organizer on Ocasio-Cortez’s 2018 congressional campaign.

Ocasio-Cortez’s office and campaign did not immediately respond to an Algemeiner request for comment for this story. However, her campaign refuted the claim in a statement to Fox News, saying Abdul never worked or volunteered for them and denouncing her alleged statements as “appalling.”

“This person was never staff on the campaign and any representation of such is false,” the campaign said in a statement. “Their comments are appalling, and we condemn threats of violence without hesitation.”

According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), 2024 saw a record-high number of antisemitic incidents in the United States, including harassment, vandalism, and violent attacks.

The FBI similarly recorded a record number of anti-Jewish hate crimes last year, with 69 percent of all religion-based hate crimes that were reported to the federal bureau in 2024 targeting Jews

Experts have warned that threats to Jewish institutions, especially schools, carry an added layer of urgency due to the vulnerability of the population and the need for rapid law enforcement intervention.

Ocasio-Cortez has established herself as one of the most strident critics of Israel in Congress. Following Hamas’s Oct, 7, 2023, attack on Israel, the progressive firebrand has accused the Jewish state of committing a “genocide” against Palestinians and practicing “apartheid.” She has also repeatedly called for the implementation of a full “arms embargo” against Israel, which would deprive the Jewish state of weapons needed to complete its military objectives in Gaza.

Nonetheless, Ocasio-Cortez has come under fire from progressive organizations such as the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) for supporting a House resolution which affirmed Israel’s “right to exist.”