Democrat Summer Lee is projected to beat Republican Mike Doyle in Pennsylvania’s 12th district race. The progressive state senator and former community organizer would become the first black woman elected to Congress from the state. With 95% of the vote in Lee is leading by over 11 points.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) spent millions attempting to stop Lee from reaching the House. The group’s United Democracy Project (UDP) super PAC spent $2.7 million trying to defeat Lee during her primary by backing former GOP staffer Steve Irwin. Their efforts were nearly successful, as Lee ended up prevailing by less than a point.
UDP spent about $80,000 on mailers and nearly $1 million on ads attacking Lee during the general election, marking the first time the organization had directly spent on a general election race between a Democrat and a Republican.
Ironically AIPAC’s primary ads attacked Lee for being a bad Democrat while they backed the Republican candidate during the general election.
Justice Democrats spokesperson Waleed Shahid spoke about AIPAC’s recent spending during an appearance on Democracy Now this week.
“Observers and analysts have said that it really tracks the kind of way that groups like the NRA went from a bipartisan group to a pretty extreme right-wing group over time, once they started to lose ground with Democrats and especially a younger generation of Democrats,” he explained.
“And I think AIPAC is heading in that trajectory, as well, where they are no longer a bipartisan organization but mostly a right-wing organization that is increasingly going to be out of touch with Democratic Party values and Democratic Party politicians. And so, we are seeing them make this major effort to recover extreme anti-Palestinian sentiments within the Democratic Party, but I do think they are losing a generational battle here.”
Lee’s Israel criticisms
Lee seemingly drew the ire of AIPAC after she criticized Israel during its deadly attacks on Gaza during the spring of 2021. “When I hear American pols use the refrain ‘Israel has the right to defend itself’ in response to undeniable atrocities on a marginalized population, I can’t help but think of how the west has always justified indiscriminate and disproportionate force and power on weakened and marginalized people,” she tweeted. “The US has never shown leadership in safeguarding human rights of folks its othered But as we fight against injustice here in the movement for black lives we must stand against injustice everywhere. Inhumanities against the Palestinian people cannot be tolerated or justified.”
Lee defended her tweet during an event earlier this year. “I was seeing, as a black woman, somebody who has also experienced oppression– we as black folks have experienced global oppression– and really looking at the parallels and being startled,” she explained. “That was I believe a year ago, also during Ramadan, where we saw a mosque being raided. Those are folks who are in their most vulnerable point and they’re holding on, praying and breaking fast, and that was an internationally-recognized event that happened that was an escalation unlike we had seen, and what I heard and what I continue to hear was instead of a cry out to say that was not OK… instead what I saw were American politicians rushing to use that phrase that Israel has a right to defend itself.”
“The question was what were they defending themselves against at that moment and I think that that was specifically what that tweet was speaking about,” she continued. “When we are saying that a powerful entity has a right to defend itself, when no one had done anything needing a defense, that was the parallel that was drawn between Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman who instigated it and then saying he had a right to defend himself. And that’s what I was seeing as a black woman and recognizing that parallel and the trauma that comes with it.”
Jewish Support For Lee
Local Jewish residents have defended Lee against AIPAC’s smears and drawn attention to her progressive record.
About 250 Jewish Pittsburghers signed a letter condemning AIPAC’s spending in the race and its support for 109 Republicans who denied the results of the 2020 presidential election. “All of us in the Jewish community and beyond who are concerned about the survival of democracy in the United States and around the world should do what we can to support candidates like Summer Lee–up and down the ballot–and to make clear that the harmful actions of AIPAC do not speak for us,” it reads.
Even Lee’s primary opponent Steve Irwin, who is a board member of Jewish Democratic Outreach Pennsylvania and former chair of the Pennsylvania Jewish Coalition, said he was disappointed that UDP backed Doyle and called for voters to support Lee. There’s no time to be distracted,” he told attendees at a Lee rally. “We have to come together, both as Jews and as Democrats.”
“In Summer Lee’s race, AIPAC is both: Empowering a racist, insurrectionist GOP powered by a white nationalist movement that is dangerous for many Americans, including American Jews And Dividing American Jews from our allies against that movement,” tweeted Eva Borgwardt, political director at the progressive Jewish organization IfNotNow.
AIPAC and progressives
While AIPAC consistently backs a number of Democratic lawmakers, its relationship with the progressive wing of the party has grown rocky in recent years. The lobbying group faced widespread criticism after it endorsed 109 Republicans who voted to decertify the 2020 election.
The group maintains that unfettered support for Israel is good politics for both parties, but polling indicates that support for Israel is declining among Democratic voters. According to a 2021 Gallup poll found that a majority of Democratic voters now say that the United States should pressure Israel to end the conflict, not Palestine. These findings line up with similar surveys. A 2019 Data for Progress poll found that 65% of Democratic voters support conditioning aid to Israel, while a Center for American Progress poll from the same year had that number as high as 71%.
There’s even reason to believe that support the BDS movement is growing among Democrats. A University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll from this year found that among Democrats who know what BDS is, they overwhelmingly support it by a margin of 33 to 10.
Notably none of AIPAC’s ads attacking Lee mentioned Israel.
AIPAC had a bad night. It looks like the Progressive Voices in Congress are growing in number – despite huge sums of AIPAC dark money being thrown against all of them.
Yes, Maxwell Frost was cowardly when facing the AIPAC pressure, but he is far better than the Republican he defeated. Also, it looks like Florida is a state where the Republican “message of Fear” is very effective.
Another glowing example for all of our progressive politicians with an ounce of conscience left.
You don’t have to take AIPAC’s millions. You don’t have to bend the knee to Israel. You don’t have be enthralled to the policies of a foreign supremacist Apartheid government at the expense of your values, morality, and code of ethics, or those of your constituents to represent. You just need to be a decent human being that cares for ALL human rights and who puts the needs of your own nation, your own state, and your own people first. Rather than the interests of a foreign nation and its lobbyists and unregistered agents. Who woulda thunk it?
Bit of a no-brainer really, but in the highly corrupted political landscape hand-sculpted over decades by the likes of AIPAC, even this can seem like quantum physics.
Summer Lee’s race should be a lesson for progressive candidates across the country. Not just that they really, really, really don’t need AIPAC or the Faustian bargain they offer, but that they will happily fund your far-right opponent the instant they feel that you don’t display sufficient fealty to their one and ONLY cause. That being the interests of Apartheid Israel. With “friends” like AIPAC, who needs enemies?
I don’t anything about Steve Irwin, but I’m impressed by his stance here. He actually seems to have principles, even if I might not agree with them all. (I am assuming he is more of a Zionist.)
Israel and its American agents are desperate to avoid Americans finding out the facts about Israel. The reason is obvious. But Israel’s bribery and threats cannot ultimately overcome the US Constitution’s bedrock guarantee of freedom to speak one’s view on any topic.
My deepest, most profound thanks to Summer Lee for her honesty, and for her courage in speaking the truth to power. A true voice of America!
In short, Zionists are digging “Israel’s” grave. No surprise!!