Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., accused a pro-Israel political action committee (PAC) of being an ‘extremist organization’ that ‘destabilizes’ American democracy.

The leader of the progressive ‘Squad’ attacked the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on Tuesday night amid Israel’s war with the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas.

Ocasio-Cortez — who accused Israel of committing ‘war crimes’ last month — accused the pro-Israel PAC of being ‘racist’ and ‘bigoted’ toward lawmakers of color. 

Ocasio-Cortez also accused AIPAC of being an ‘extremist organization that destabilizes US democracy.’

‘AIPAC endorsed scores of Jan 6th insurrectionists,’ the Democratic Socialist of America (DSA) congresswoman said. ‘They are no friend to American democracy.’

‘They are one of the more racist and bigoted PACs in Congress as well, who disproportionately target members of color,’ she continued.

‘They are an extremist organization that destabilizes US democracy,’ she wrote.

AIPAC responded to Ocasio-Cortez’s post, blasting the democratic socialist congresswoman over her peddling ‘of the same tired lies [and] spin.’

‘[Ocasio-Cortez] and the Squad summed up: People who disagree with us are racist,’ AIPAC posted on Wednesday. ‘AIPAC stands with pro-Israel Democrats and Republicans of all races, genders, and backgrounds who support the US-Israel alliance.’

‘And we oppose those who don’t, like you,’ the group added.

AIPAC’s website — which features Democrat Rep. Haley Stevens of Michigan on its ‘About’ page — says it works to bring ‘together Democrats and Republicans to advance our shared mission’ of advancing policies strengthening U.S.-Israel relations.

‘Building bipartisan support for the U.S.-Israel relationship is an American value we are proud to champion,’ the website reads.

Ocasio-Cortez’s post came in response to a post from AIPAC criticizing the members of the ‘Squad’ — and Kentucky GOP Rep. Thomas Massie — for voting against the House resolution standing with Israel in the country’s war against Hamas.

The ‘Squad’ member and her progressive colleagues have been vocal critics of Israel amid the Middle Eastern democracy’s war against Palestinian terrorists who sparked the conflict with their October 7 surprise terrorist attack on civilians.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., spoke at a pro-Hamas protest on Capitol Hill last month, leading to the introduction of a censure resolution from Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Greene’s resolution accused Tlaib of ‘antisemitic activity’ and ‘sympathizing with terrorist organizations’ for her role in the protest and past antisemitic rhetoric.

Tlaib, like Ocasio-Cortez and several other House Democrats, is a member of the DSA, which has seen the departure of a founding member over the group’s ‘morally bankrupt’ response to Hamas’ surprise terrorist attack.

DSA founding member Maurice Isserman announced last month that he is leaving the organization for its response to Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israeli civilians.

Isserman, who is still described on the socialists’ website as a founding member of DSA, penned a piece for The Nation headlined, ‘Why I Just Quit DSA.’

‘I left to protest the DSA leadership’s politically and morally bankrupt response to the horrific Hamas October 7 anti-Jewish pogrom that took the lives of 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and saw over 200 hostages carried off to Gaza, both groups of victims including children and infants,’ he wrote.

‘Its statement on October 7 made no mention—let alone offering any criticism—of Hamas, declaring instead, ‘Today’s events are a direct result of Israel’s apartheid regime—a regime that receives billions in funding from the United States,’’ he continued.

However, even among the anti-Israel rhetoric from the DSA and its members and the departure of a founding member over the issue, the socialist organization and progressive organizations have evaded being labeled hate groups.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a left-wing organization that tracks and labels so-called ‘hate groups’ across the country, is remaining silent on whether Black Lives Matter (BLM) or the DSA actions following Hamas’s deadly attack on Israelis raise ‘hate’ concerns.

BLM Grassroots called the Iran-backed terrorist group’s attacks ‘desperate acts of self-defense.’ The DSA promoted a New York City pro-Hamas rally and said the incursion was a ‘direct result of Israel’s apartheid regime.’ 

Demonstrators at the rally burned and stomped on an Israeli flag and taunted supporters of Israel with an image of a swastika. Others displayed signs that read, ‘Palestinian return by any means necessary,’ ‘Israeli apartheid & genocide funded by the U.S.’ and ‘End all U.S. aid to Israel!’

Dozens of student groups at universities such as Harvard also defended Hamas and held Israel ‘entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.’

Fox News Digital’s Alexander Hall and Joe Schoffstall contributed reporting.

FIRST ON FOX: Conservative advocacy group Building Americas Future is launching a six-figure ad buy across multiple 2024 swing states and congressional districts over the Biden administration’s proposed menthol cigarette ban.

According to Building Americas Future’s ad campaign, the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) actions restricting menthol cigarette sales would jeopardize hundreds of millions of dollars in state revenue nationwide. Overall, a Tax Foundation analysis conducted in 2022 said the restriction would cost the federal government $1.9 billion and state governments a total of $4.7 billion, given the high tax rates on cigarettes.

‘Sadly, it appears the menthol‐​ban train has already left the station,’ Jeffrey Singer, a senior fellow at the free market Cato Institute, wrote in a report on Oct. 17. ‘This means more business opportunities for purveyors of black market products — ranging from illicit drugs to cigars and cigarettes. And if history teaches us anything, we can expect to witness many harmful unintended consequences.’

‘Prohibition fuels an underground market where peaceful, voluntary transactions become crimes. It gives law enforcement another reason to interact with non‐​violent people who commit these victimless crimes,’ Singer added in comments submitted to the FDA months earlier. ‘With menthol cigarettes more popular among Blacks and Hispanics, expect police to focus their attention on minority communities.’

The ad buy specifically targets New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Hampshire’s 5th congressional district, Colorado’s 8th congressional district, Pennslyvania’s 7th and 8th congressional districts, Ohio’s 13th congressional district and Connecticut’s 5th congressional district.

According to the Tax Foundation analysis from last year, swing states Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina and Ohio would see revenues decline by an estimated $123 million, $219 million, $165 million and $227 million, respectively.

The average pack of cigarettes in the U.S. faces $1.91 in state taxes and $1.01 in federal taxes. Additionally, every state continues to receive funds from the Master Settlement Agreement — a 1998 settlement between the states and nation’s four largest tobacco companies to resolve dozens of health-related lawsuits and reduce youth smoking — which, the Tax Foundation concluded, translates to about $0.75 per pack in 2022.

In April 2022, the FDA issued product standards to prohibit menthol as a characterizing flavor in cigarettes and prohibit all characterizing flavors other than tobacco in cigars. The agency said the move would reduce disease and death from tobacco product use by reducing youth experimentation and addiction, and increasing the number of smokers that quit. 

‘The proposed rules would help prevent children from becoming the next generation of smokers and help adult smokers quit,’ Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said at the time. ‘Additionally, the proposed rules represent an important step to advance health equity by significantly reducing tobacco-related health disparities.’ 

Tobacco smoking remains the lead cause of preventable death nationwide, according to the FDA. In proposing the rules, the FDA cited its congressional authority to adopt tobacco product standards.

Last month, the FDA sent the proposed regulations to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review, a final step in finalizing and eventually implementing the menthol cigarette ban. Brian King, the director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, previously told Fox News Digital that the move means the proposal reached its ‘final step of review for regulatory documents.’

‘This administration would make criminals of law-abiding citizens while granting actual felons early release and encouraging illicit drug use,’ Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., told Fox News Digital on July 14. ‘No wonder Americans have lost faith in an administration that’s less interested in public safety than targeting political enemies.’

‘My general perspective would be that as adults, people can make their own choices, and what the government’s job to do is to ensure that we have a market that is open and that products are available that are regulated to make sure that everyone is safe,’ Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., added at the time. ‘At the federal level, I believe that it’s our job to kind of stay out of that and let states take their own action and manage their own choices.’

Additionally, groups representing small businesses like the New England Convenience Store & Energy Marketers Association have also criticized the proposal. 

However, proponents of the proposed actions said it could lead to reduced tobacco use and ensure positive health outcomes.

‘Once finalized, rules to end the sale of menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars rule will be the most significant actions that the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products has taken in its 14-year history. The American Lung Association is eager for these lifesaving rules to be implemented and urges the White House to finalize these rules before the end of the year,’ American Lung Association CEO and President Harold Wimmer said last month.

‘The science and data are clear. Ending the sale of menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars will save lives,’ Wimmer continued. ‘It will also help reduce the unjust disparities in tobacco use caused by the tobacco companies targeting certain communities with menthol cigarettes.’

On Tuesday, a group of 311 faith leaders sent a letter to President Biden, saying the FDA finalizing the regulations was a ‘moral imperative.’

The NAACP, 100 Black Men of America Inc., U.S. Conference of Mayors and Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids have also signaled support for the FDA’s proposal.

The FDA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Joe Schoffstall contributed to this report.

FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., wants to put an end to federal tax dollars funding ‘pro-terrorist activities’ on college campuses across the U.S. 

Rubio – a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee – introduced the Ending Subsidies for Pro-Terrorist Activities on Campus Act on Wednesday, which would designate terrorist-related activity as grounds for disqualification from federal student aid. 

‘The last thing that students should be worried about is their safety. Shamefully, some students and faculty members are supporting an organization that has pledged to commit violence until Israel no longer exists,’ Rubio told Fox News Digital in a statement. 

The bill comes as student groups on college campuses have shown support for Hamas, the Islamist terrorist group, after its attack on Israel, which killed more than 1,400 people. 

Since the Oct. 7 massacre carried out by Hamas, Jewish students nationwide have experienced a surge in incidents like vandalism, arson and harassment.

‘Our tax dollars should not be funding antisemitic, pro-terrorist activities on college campuses. It is absolutely ridiculous that the government is subsidizing this,’ Rubio said.

The bill also requires publicly-funded higher education institutions to publicly report their policies to prevent and address unprotected speech related to terrorist activities and antisemitism on campus. 

It also requires colleges to identify and report candidates and applicants involved in terrorist-related activity, as well as foreign students violating the new policies to the Departments of Homeland Security and State.

Over a dozen instances of antisemitism or alleged attacks on Jewish students have been reported on college campuses last month. 

More than 30 student groups at Harvard co-signed a letter declaring they ‘hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence’ when the attacks in the Holy Land broke out. 

‘Today’s events did not occur in a vacuum,’ the Oct. 7 letter stated. ‘For the last two decades, millions of Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to live in an open-air prison. Israeli officials promise to ‘open the gates of hell,’ and the massacres in Gaza have already commenced. In the coming days, Palestinians will be forced to bear the full brunt of Israel’s violence. The apartheid regime is the only one to blame.’

At least five of the groups withdrew their support for the letter following intense backlash. Harvard president Claudine Gay also addressed the controversy, insisting the university ‘reject terrorism’ and denounce hate and harassment toward any group but maintained support for free expression on campus. 

At New York University, students were caught tearing down posters of Israeli hostages Oct. 16 outside the university’s Tisch Hall.

Yazmeen Deyhimi, one of the three students identified in the viral video, offered an apology on social media.

Another incident was reported out of Stanford University, where an instructor allegedly asked Jewish and Israeli students to identify themselves. Three students told Rabbi Dov Greenberg, director of the Chabad Stanford Jewish Center, that the instructor told them to gather their belongings and stand in the corner because ‘this is what Israel does to the Palestinians.’

‘The instructor then asked, ‘How many people died in the Holocaust?’ When a student answered, ‘Six million,’ the lecturer said, ‘Colonizers killed more than 6 million. Israel is a colonizer,’’ according to a report from Jewish publication The Forward.

The instructor, who was not identified, was benched pending an investigation, according to Stanford University. 

Fox News’ Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report. 

President Biden on Wednesday said the U.S. has secured safe passage for wounded Palestinians and for foreign nationals to exit Gaza for Egypt. 

‘We expect American citizens to exit today, and we expect to see more depart over the coming days,’ Biden wrote in a post on X. ‘We won’t let up working to get Americans out of Gaza.’ 

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller later said during a press briefing that there are ‘around 400 Americans in Gaza with whom we are in communication, who have expressed a desire to leave’ and that there are ‘a number of American citizens who have crossed through Rafah and are in Egypt today.’

Egypt, Israel and Hamas earlier came to an agreement allowing limited evacuations out of Gaza and into Egypt through the Rafah crossing after Qatar mediated talks.  

LIVE UPDATES: ISRAEL AT WAR WITH HAMAS 

The deal allows for foreign passport holders and some critically injured Gaza residents to evacuate, though no timeline has been set for how long the crossing will remain open, a source briefed on the deal told Reuters. 

Dozens of foreign passport holders reportedly could be seen entering the crossing Wednesday morning in evidence of the deal. 

The negotiations came as the Israeli military has been carrying out the second stage of its war against Hamas. The Israel Defense Forces have greatly expanded ground operations in Gaza, clearing Hamas terrorists out of their fortified positions and tunnels. 

Military officials have warned that the campaign will be a long and difficult affair. So far, at least 16 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the fighting. 

IRAN’S LEADER SAYS COUNTRIES SHOULD ‘BLOCK THE FLOW OF OIL AND FOOD’ TO ISRAEL 

Biden’s announcement comes about a day after National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby accused Hamas terrorists of ‘putting up obstacles’ to prevent Americans from leaving Gaza. 

‘Why have Americans and foreign nationals still been unable to get out of Gaza, even though aid trucks have been going in?’ a reporter asked Kirby during Tuesday’s White House press briefing. ‘Beyond putting blame on Hamas, what more can you say about what’s going on here and what the progress is?’ 

‘I mean, they are putting obstacles up to allow us to get folks out,’ Kirby said. 

Fox News’ Anders Hagstrom and Andrea Vacchiano contributed to this report. 

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan opened an investigation Wednesday into the intelligence community’s alleged obstruction of Sen. Chuck Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson’s 2020 investigation into Hunter Biden by casting their work as an advancement of Russian ‘disinformation.’

Jordan, R-Ohio, who also chairs the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, sent a letter to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines demanding information on the efforts by officials to debunk their probe.

Grassley, R-Iowa, and Johnson, R-Wis., began investigating Hunter Biden and his business dealings with Ukraine and other foreign nations in 2019.

In August 2020, Grassley and Johnson were given a briefing by the FBI — a briefing that the senators have since called described as improper, and one that was delivered after ‘pressure from congressional Democrats’ and ahead of the 2020 election.

The ‘defensive’ briefing, on August 6, 2020, was delivered by FBI officials, including then-Deputy Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Nikki Floris, and the FBI’s then-Section Chief of the Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) Bradley Benavides. The officials briefed Grassley and Johnson on the ‘threat of Russian disinformation.’

‘Although the FBI claims that the briefing focused on Russia, the information that Floris and Benavides conveyed to the Senators ‘consisted primarily of information that [the Senators] already knew and information unconnected to [their] Biden investigation.’ The briefing, the existence of which was later leaked, hampered the Senators’ investigation into Hunter Biden’s financial connections to foreign governments and foreign nationals,’ Jordan wrote to Haines Wednesday.

Jordan pointed to Grassley and Johnson’s letter to Floris and Benavides after the briefing, calling it ‘unnecessary,’ and a briefing that ‘provided the Democrats and liberal media the vehicle to spread their false narrative that our work advanced Russian disinformation. Although you stated that the FBI didn’t intend to ‘interfere’ in our investigation, the practical effect of such an unnecessary briefing and the subsequent leaks relating to it created interference, which frustrated and obstructed congressional oversight efforts.’

But Jordan conducted a transcribed interview with Floris, who said that while the briefing was delivered by FBI officials, the intelligence ‘used to justify the Senators’ ‘defensive’ briefing did not come from the FBI, but rather from ODNI.’

‘Specifically, she testified that ‘ODNI owns this whole process…ODNI took the lead…in drafting the script’ used to brief Senators Grassley and Johnson. She further testified: ‘I would certainly defer you to ODNI as far as the specifics that were in the script. It wasn’t FBI collected information,’’ Jordan wrote.

Jordan added that during a transcribed interview with Benavides in September, he testified that he and Floris had briefed Grassley and Johnson ”at the request of the ODNI,’’

‘He further testified that the script used to brief the senators had been ‘coordinated through the ODNI framework and then delivered in this instance, by Nikki Floris,’ Jordan wrote.

‘Floris and Benavides made it unequivocally clear that ODNI and its Notification Framework were integral to the pretextual ‘defensive’ briefing meant to frustrate and obstruct congressional oversight into the Biden family’s overseas influence-peddling operation,’ Jordan wrote.

Jordan is requesting Haines and ODNI turn over ‘The script, including all drafts of the script, that ODNI prepared for the FBI to brief Grassley and Johnson on August 6, 2020.’

He is also requesting all documents and communications referring to the briefing; a list of intelligence community agencies that ‘nominated the intelligence that served as the basis’ for the briefing; and a list of individuals involved in the decision to provide the briefing.

Jordan also asked for all communications between ODNI and top Democrats like then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Sen. Mark Warner, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Adam Schiff. A letter they sent to the FBI in July 2020 ‘included a classified attachment with an unclassified element that attempted to tie Senator Grassley and Johnson’s investigation to foreign disinformation,’ Jordan said.

Jordan requested the information be shared with the committee by November 15. He also requested that an official who served as the first Intelligence Community Election Threats Executive at ODNI appear for a transcribed interview. Jordan said the committee’s oversight ‘has revealed that she was personally involved with formulating ODNI’s Notification Framework and has relevant information relating to the intelligence and processes used to justify the August 6 defensive briefing.’ 

Grassley and Johnson ultimately released their Hunter Biden interim report in September 2020. The report detailed their findings, including records they obtained from the U.S. Treasury Department that ‘show potential criminal activity relating to transactions among and between Hunter Biden, his family and his associates with Ukrainian, Russian, Kazakh and Chinese nationals.’

The House Oversight is currently investigating the Biden family’s foreign business dealings and whether President Biden was involved. 

Jordan’s investigation comes as the Weaponization Committee continues to investigate officials who falsely cast the Hunter Biden laptop as Russian disinformation.