The event, billed by Ocasio-Cortez's campaign as a "Students vs. Billionaires" town hall, took place at Cornell University. Petrova and the group's co-chair, Zoe Reisman, opened the gathering by declaring "long live the student intifada" before leading attendees in the chant, a phrase widely viewed as a call for the elimination of Israel.
Petrova told the crowd that Cornell is "fundamentally a capitalist institution that prioritizes billionaires and profit over students and community."
The chant came from the student group hosting Ocasio-Cortez, not from the congresswoman herself, though it happened at an event organized in her name. Cornell's Young Democratic Socialists of America chapter used its platform ahead of her appearance to frame the university as complicit in a system that favors wealth over students, and it tied that argument directly to the anti-Israel slogan. For a sitting member of Congress, sharing a stage with organizers who open with "student intifada" and close with a chant many view as a call for Israel's destruction raises questions about what she knew was planned and whether she will address it.