The age difference between myself (29) + oldest House members is ~60yrs. For better or worse, young people will live in the world Congress leaves beh… - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

They said: 'We can do it all. We can fight for our families held hostage by Hamas, stand against occupation, stand with impacted Israelis, stand up for innocent Palestinians

The value of human rights is really the path to peace here...That’s a central thing that we need to make sure that we value the safety and the human rights of Israelis and we value the safety and human rights of Palestinians in that process that is similar on equal footing... Just like here in the United States, I don’t believe that children should be detained. I think that starting on those basic principles of human rights, we can build a path to peace together... We really need to make sure that we are valuing a process where all parties are respected, and have a lot of equal opportunity to really make sure that we are negotiating in good faith.

So the way I have conversations with people of opposing beliefs is I don't try to convince them of anything. So that's the first step trying to win people over. Stop trying to enter a conversation thinking that you're gonna like aah-ha them into changing their mind. I think that you know, we've kind of lost the art of conversation. So when I enter a conversation with someone I actually try to learn more about where they're coming from. Like I try I actually use it as an experience... let's say I'm talking to someone who's saying something really racist and they don't even realize that they're saying something really racist. I ask some questions because I'm interested. I'm fascinated by that. How does that work, you know? I don't do it in a way that's like mocking but I ask questions. We have to learn to really disarm ourselves in these conversations. First of all because we approach them with so much hostility and they get mad and we get mad and all of these things and so part of it is like emotional work and The second part of it is intention. Like what are you trying to get out of this conversation? And if you're just trying to argue with someone, it's not gonna work You know, you believe what you believe they believe what they believe. So I think the thing that we have to do is try to have a good faith interaction of trying to learn more about where the other person comes from because often what I find, is that when I do win people over It's almost never in the conversation itself that I've won someone over. Its that I have a conversation with someone, I asked them some critical questions and I calmly explained to them: well, this is where I'm coming from and this is why I believe what I believe why do you believe what you believe? And you kind of like leave the conversation but very often that person will sit on what you said and they will sit on the fact that you respected them and gave them space and then very often I've had interactions like that and I'll run into that person again a week later a month later and they said you know what? You said something that I really thought about and I changed my mind...But if you rush in, you know fully-armored up, attacking them and making them feel defensive they will never listen to anything that you have to say. So it's really about learning how how we can have a conversation again.