I live in New York City’s 10th Congressional District — and I was at first enraged when I learned that AIPAC, the right wing of the pro-Israel lobby, had secretly intervened in our Democratic primary election on August 23. But then, on reflection, I realized that AIPAC’s sneaky move may backfire. The lobby does get one more solidly pro-Israel member of Congress (to add to the several hundred who are already there).
On the other hand, the deceit may energize thousands of my neighbors, who watched as our leading progressive candidate lost by only 1300 votes. People in Manhattan and Brooklyn who, until now, may not have paid much attention to Israel/Palestine will sit up and take notice.
Here’s what just happened; Daniel Goldman, a centrist corporate Democrat who is an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune and who donated $4 million of his own money to his campaign, apparently edged out the exciting young progressive Yuh-Line Niou, a New York State Assembly member. (This site’s Michael Arria has already explained what happened in detail. )
During the campaign, voters here were swamped with nearly daily anonymous mailers that singled out Yuh-Line Niou for attack. The mailers matched anything emanating from Trump world for dishonesty, including distorted criticisms and nasty, probably doctored photos of the candidate. I should have saved them, but I was so disgusted that I recycled them immediately.
The anonymous organization responsible, calling itself “New York Progressive,” was at first traced back to a lobbyist named Jeffrey Leb (who has worked for real estate companies, no surprise in a city where property is king and big landlords have enormous power).
But the day after the election, AIPAC, which had been quiet until then, jumped in with its boast: “We are proud to have played a role in defeating Yuh-Line Niou— an anti-Israel candidate who endorses the BDS campaign against Israel — through our significant support of a local New York SuperPAC.”
This statement is wrong. Yuh-Line Niou does not herself support BDS, as this pre-election report by this site’s Arria made clear. What she refused to do was demonize BDS supporters and argue that they should be punished.
To be fair, other factors contributed to Niou’s narrow loss. Several other candidates split the progressive vote. And Goldman’s own $4 million donation was considerably larger than the estimated $395,000 that the dark money PAC spent.
And yet. Negative campaigning does work. Candidates themselves can’t openly slander their opponents, but anonymous attacks can raise doubts, and either encourage voters to switch their allegiance or deter them from voting at all. Remove the AIPAC dark money and Yuh-Line Niou might have made up those 1300 votes.
So far, the mainstream media is almost totally quiet about AIPAC’s interference. New York Times reporter Dana Rubinstein did tweet about the AIPAC admission, but so far neither she nor any of her colleagues has reported it in their actual newspaper.
A mystery is that AIPAC hid its role until the election was over. The organization openly sabotaged progressive Rep. Andy Levin last month in a Michigan primary, but apparently felt it had to hide its dirty work here in New York.
Most Democratic voters in the NY-10 congressional district surely (and understandably) have different concerns than Israel/Palestine. But now, thanks in part to AIPAC, our progressive area is saddled with another corporate Democrat; during the campaign, Goldman waffled on abortion rights and dismissed Medicare-for-all. My neighbors are going to want to know more about why the Israel lobby helped prevent us from getting the representation we should have.
Corporate Democrats are especially big supporters of the war corporations, and their main projects – wars. The Corp Dems have been fully on board with spending trillions on all the Middle East wars.
These wars have been ruining America’s reputation around the world, but have benefited Israel’s policy agendas. Meanwhile, all the money being poured down these war ratholes has been unavailable to address America’s clear domestic needs.
All this reminds me of a joke I heard an Israeli tell on the Charlie Rose Show – Israel would not want to be the 51st state because then it would only have 2 Senators.
Likely AIPAC exposed its hand as a way of signaling its power to the political world. This happened when they took down Sen. Charles Percy, Chair of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee in 1984 for opposing settlement expansion.
“A mystery is that AIPAC hid its role until the election was over.” Really? I’d have thought it was obvious. Israel isn’t very popular these days. Andy Levin was different – he’s Jewish, and a Jew who isn’t a total knee-jerk Zionist they consider to be a traitor.
I wonder…… Progressives are so accustomed to being un-electable that perhaps they don’t realize that things are changing, and that it’s time to run one progressive candidate, not several who compete with each other.