You might have missed this, but the PAC Pro-Israel America (PIA) is shutting down.
In fact, you might have missed PIA’s existence altogether. The lobbying group was created in 2019 by some former AIPAC officials. “There are challenges to the alliance and those challenges are likely to grow in the future,” said co-founder Jeff Mendelsohn back then. “Congress is changing rapidly. What we’re trying to do is get more pro-Israel Americans involved in the political process by creating a one-stop online shop where people can learn about the importance of political action.”
It’s unclear whether PIA ended up getting more pro-Israel Americans involved in the political process. They say they had 8,000 donors and raised $7 million for candidates, but they were up against a very big fish in a small pond. Shortly after it was created AIPAC launched its own PAC and SuperPac. It raised $18.5 million just last cycle.
“As we move into the 2024 cycle, Pro-Israel America PAC has closed its doors, but our donors and activists are continuing to support pro-Israel candidates on both sides of the aisle through other pro-Israel channels,” Mendelsohn told Jewish Insider.
There’s only one pro-Israel channel that can put other pro-Israel channels out of business. It’s AIPAC and, as the same Jewish Insider newsletter notes, they got another boost recently when Justice Democrats (a group that regularly supports progressive Democrats who criticize Israel) announced it was laying off half its 20-member staff. The progressive group is set to back Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) in next year’s election again, but AIPAC is eyeing the race too. They’ve met with former state senator George Latimer to discuss potentially running against Bowman in 2024’s primary. They’re also looking to back Minneapolis council member LaTrisha Vetaw against Ilhan Omar and presumably kicking the tires on a Summer Lee challenger.
AIPAC’s war chest for such races was recently expanded. United Democracy Project (UDP), the SuperPac it uses to intervene in Democratic primaries, just got $1 million from GOP mega-donor and Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus. UDP now has almost $9 million to spend on the upcoming elections. Here’s a Republican billionaire trying to sway Democratic races via AIPAC and the lobbying group won’t mention Israel in any of the ads that Marcus helps to bankroll because they know it’s become a controversial issue among Democratic voters. This is all legal under U.S. campaign finance law.
Meanwhile, AIPAC’s favorite Democrats are standing firm on the issue. This House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) led a group of 24 Democrats to Israel on a trip organized by the lobbying group. Here’s the crew:
Reps. Pete Aguilar (D-CA), Brad Schneider (D-IL), Haley Stevens (D-MI), Becca Balint (D-VT), Yadira Caraveo (D-CO), Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), Don Davis (D-NC), Chris Deluzio (D-PA), Robert Garcia (D-CA), Dan Goldman (D-NY), Glenn Ivey (D-MD), Rob Menendez (D-NJ), Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), Wiley Nickel (D-NC), Brittany Pettersen (D-CO), Pat Ryan (D-NY), Andrea Salinas (D-OR), Hillary Scholten (D-MI), Eric Sorensen (D-IL), Emilia Sykes (D-OH), Shri Thanedar (D-MI) and Jill Tokuda (D-HI).
A lot of the usual suspects here, but a couple of notable names. Becca Balint was elected to replace Peter Welch, and was endorsed by Bernie Sanders. She is Vermont’s first female representative and its first openly gay representative.
In November 2022, Haaretz identified her as a “new progressive that AIPAC will be watching like a hawk.” She’s not a supporter of BDS, but she checks all the boxes of a typical AIPAC enemy. She’s backed by J Street, talks about ending the occupation, advocates for a Palestinian state, and expresses concern about “home demolitions, unjust detentions, displacement of families through illegal settlement expansions, ongoing bombings of Gaza” and “the strangling blockade of Gaza and harassment at checkpoints.”
Maybe she has aspirations to eventually take Sanders’s Senate seat and has made a shrewd calculation about the challenges of raising money on a national level. No matter what the reason, it’s a sad story.
The other name that stands out for me is Michigan’s Shri Thanedar. AIPAC spent millions trying to defeat him with a pro-Israel’s candidate. Thanedar’s big crime was backing a resolution that referred to Israel as an apartheid state. Now he’s on a PR trip for that same apartheid state, meeting up with the most right-wing government in its history.
In many ways Thanedar’s attendance is much less surprising than Balint’s. When pro-Israel groups came for him over the resolution, he backed down right away. He said he made a mistake because Israel’s brutal attack on Gaza had him “emotional.” Imagine that.
He prevailed in the election but also got to see what AIPAC is willing to spend on congressional fights. He was no doubt spooked, and the group doesn’t have to spend against him anymore. He’s been neutralized.
Hakeem Jeffries put out a predictable statement about the trip. He’s concerned about judicial reforms but it’s not his job to articulate the precise contours of what needs to be done in Israel. We need to make sure Israel maintains their military edge because they live in a “rough neighborhood.” He says he talked to Netanyahu about recent settler attacks and was satisfied with his reply. The Prime Minister “doesn’t condone violence, no matter where it originates. And I take him at his word.”
DCI Palestine’s Miranda Cleland gets to the heart of the matter on Twitter. “It is beyond stupid to take Netanyahu ‘at his word’ instead of looking at the violence that Israeli settlers, armed and protected by the Israeli state, are unleashing across the occupied West Bank,” she writes. A Palestinian kid died today after an Israeli settler shot him in the chest last week.”
Netanyahu praised the delegation as a rebuke to those who call Israel an apartheid state. “These are hectic times but they’re also full of promise,” he said.
Mission accomplished for the visitors.
Tammy Baldwin
Here’s an amazing example of how Israel gets treated by most U.S. lawmakers. Tammy Baldwin has been a Wisconsin Senator for a decade, before that, she was in the House. No one will mistake her for a leftist, but many would probably classify her as a progressive. She opposed the Iraq War, supports Medicare for All, and is very good on LGBTIQA+ issues.
Last week Marc Rod had a story about Baldwin attending a fundraiser in San Francisco. She was photographed standing next to Nadia Rahman, who seems like a pretty mainstream figure as far as Bay Area activists go. She’s a Lead for YIMBY San Francisco and a delegate to the California Democratic Party’s Democratic State Central Committee. She says it was a pleasure to meet Baldwin. There’s no story here, right? Wrong.
Rahman traveled to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory last year, then she wrote an essay calling on people to “donate and turn up to elect people to local, state and federal offices who are actual change agents” on the issue. She called Gaza an “open air prison,” acknowledged the Nakba happened, said Israel is an apartheid state carrying out ethnic cleansing, and other very obvious things.
This is all too much for the progressive Senator. Baldwin’s team rushed out a statement distancing herself from Rahman and pointing out she began visiting Israel at a very early age. “This event was built by Electing Women’s Bay Area chapter. Tammy Baldwin is a strong supporter of Israel and is committed to strengthening the bond between our two nations,” it read. “Tammy has spent significant time in Israel, first visiting with her grandfather in 1968.”
Baldwin’s team even bragged about the fact she has spent time with the Prime Minister: “She has returned many times as a Member of Congress and as a U.S. Senator. Her visits have included meetings with Israeli officials at the highest level, including several meetings with Prime Minister Netanyahu.”
Again maybe this boils down to reelection considerations, but a liberal Senator reverting to damage control mode over photographs with someone telling the truth about Palestine? It’s a good symbol of how deep the rot in Washington is.
Odds & Ends
???? Informative interview with Khaled Elgindy and Nada Elia on the prospect of sanctions on Israel.
???????? Dana El Kurd writes about the dangers of a Saudi/Israel “peace” in +972:
Such an agreement will hasten the suffocation and ever more likely mass displacement of Palestinians, who will have no recourse on the international stage. Saudi activists and citizens will face the brunt of the inevitable increase in repression that comes in the wake of such “peace.” And given the way that regimes employ their methods transnationally, this repression will surely travel. As history shows, the arm of authoritarian regimes is long, and very rarely held to account.
???????? Is Biden risking a war with Iran? Quincy Institute executive vice president was on Democracy Now addressing the question after the administration deployed troops to deter the country from seizing oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz:
What we’re seeing here, which is quite concerning, is that despite all of the promises that there would be lesser U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf and in the Middle East, bringing the troops home, we’re now seeing the Biden administration moving more troops into the region, betting on deterrence rather than actually a deescalation of the situation.
And part of the reason why the administration is doing this is because of its key priority in the Middle East right now, which is to get Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel. In order to do so, the Saudis have asked for a defense pact with the United States, something that Biden so far has been reluctant to offer, because it would mean that the United States would have to sacrifice its servicemen and women for the defense of the Saudi dictatorship. But in order to meet them halfway, it appears that the administration is calculating that by moving more troops to the region, by demonstrating that it is willing to go into conflict with Iran, that that will make the Saudis more comfortable that the United States will come to their defense even in the absence of an official security pact.
At the site James North notes that the mainstream media is totally ignoring this story.
???????? The Democratic consensus on Israel is beginning to fracture, but leadership is not budging on issue.
???? The Workers Circle, a progressive Jewish nonprofit dedicated to issues of social justice, resigned from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations over the coalition’s refusal to criticize the Israeli government and its support for the IHRA working definition of antisemitism.
“The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations should be a voice to advocate for democracy, rooted in Jewish text and traditions, that has served to protect our Jewish community for the past century — here and in Israel,” reads the group’s letter announcing the resignation. “We cannot be part of an organization that stands idly by in the face of these existential crises.”
✉️ You ignore ‘apartheid’ — angry scholars’ letter to US Jews is signed by 750 including Benny Morris
???? In May, the Progressive International sent a delegation to Palestine. They just released a report on the trip.
???? Some normal stuff here: “Last week, as every year, representatives of the U.S. Air Force landed in Israel for the ASNR (Air Senior National Representative) meeting. The festive meeting was chaired by IAF Chief of Staff Brig. Gen. Eyal Grinboim, the Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force, General (four-star) David W. Allvin, and the Commanders from both air forces. At its conclusion, the joint work plan for 2023-2024 was formulated in the areas of force buildup, training, operational conversation, manpower, maintenance and logistics, safety, and more.”
???? New York Helps Subsidize Israeli Settler Groups—Zohran Mamdani Isn’t OK With That
⚖️ How Washington shapes ICC to its own aims
???? Michigan state senator Sylvia Santana has apologized to Arab Americans in her Dearborn district for taking a trip to Israel. “After speaking with friends and members of the community I recognize my presence on this trip has sparked anger and disappointment by many in the Arab/Muslim community,” she wrote on Facebook. “For this I truly apologize, seek your forgiveness and hope that you will understand that I had no malicious intent. There is no perfect combination of words that I can offer that truly reflects the feelings in my heart. My only goal was to learn about this region of our world and to improve my understanding of matters related to Michigan.”
Stay safe out there,
Michael
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“AIPAC’s war chest for such races was recently expanded. United Democracy Project (UDP), the SuperPac it uses to intervene in Democratic primaries, just got $1 million from GOP mega-donor and Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus. UDP now has almost $9 million to spend on the upcoming elections. Here’s a Republican billionaire trying to sway Democratic races via AIPAC and the lobbying group won’t mention Israel in any of the ads that Marcus helps to bankroll because they know it’s become a controversial issue among Democratic voters. This is all legal under U.S. campaign finance law.”
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Ahhh…. yes, all this is legal under U.S. campaign finance law. Sad. Many nefariousnesses are legal under those laws and many Americans have taken note which is the reason AIPAC does not allow Israel to be mentioned in the Marcus-funded ads. Sad.
What does it say about AIPAC’s opinion of the intelligence of the average American voter that it would choose to edit out the single most important word/term/name in its ads? Note to AIPAC: The voters in Ohio just demonstrated that they saw right through the over-clever Republican effort to sabotage that state’s public referendum laws through the use of deceitful/misleading wording and publicity.
There was a time in American history when “pro-Israel” forces proudly shouted and sang the term “Israel” up and down NYC’s Fifth Avenue during the annual Salute to Israel parades. No more. Since 2020, due to dwindling enthusiasm among Jewish and Zionist constituencies and zero media interest, the parade has gone virtual. Sad.
American Zionism’s attempts to influence the outcomes of local, state and Federal elections is, as has been noted, legal. Moreover, I am sure AIPAC’s legal teams have made sure every deadline, application, fee, filing and authorization has been attended to in detail as would be the case with any special interest group spending millions of dollars on a political race.
However, there is a downside for American political Zionism in that it cannot have its cake and eat it too.
The presence of open, widespread, public, long-term and legal involvement of “pro-Israel” forces in the American political system literally destroys a favorite hasbara propaganda point.
To wit: the IHRA definition of antisemitism as well as the Hasbara Handbook and countless other Zionist publications and websites accuse Palestine solidarity
organizations of antisemitism because they apply “double standards” when criticizing Israel or “singling it out” for its actions.
Usually, the smear is worded along these lines: It is antisemitic to accuse only Israel of human rights violations, apartheid or oppression while at the same time not condemning Russia, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, North Korea, Syria or any other mix of countries with oppressive regimes some with “far worse human rights records than Israel”
(Cont.)
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Does organized, professional Zionism really consider this a valid and useful point or is it merely a clever piece of propaganda “whataboutery”?
This is an empty comparison because Zionism is an active participant in U.S. electioneering machinery. It is engaged, for example by AIPAC’s funding of re-election campaigns, publishing misleading advertising campaigns and organizing efforts to “primary” insufficiently servile candidates or office-holders, among many other domestic electoral activities.
Saudi Arabia does none of these things. Myanmar has never run a candidate for elected office in the U.S. Syria has never donated a million dollars to an electoral campaign. North Korea has no minions in either the House or the Senate. Russia may be criminally involved in corrupting our elections electronically but that is a comparison I imagine AIPAC & Co. regret including given the newly-publicized role of Israeli espionage and counterintelligence organs such as NSO, Intellexa and Cytrox which were just blacklisted by the U.S. Commerce Department. Sad?
It cannot be antisemitic to single out Israel for condemnation for the simple fact that Israel, alone among all the countries of the world, because Israel is the only country actually engaged full-time-full-bore in the minutiae of America’s domestic electoral processes. Moreover, North Korea, Myanmar, et. al. do not receive billions in aid from the U.S. and therefore the U.S. is not morally complicit in their tyranny. Israel DOES receive American economic, military, diplomatic and political support, and therefore the American public IS morally complicit in the crimes committed by Israel against the Palestinian people.
Americans are rightfully outraged by Israel’s actions against the Palestinians and they are duty bound to let their own government, as well as the government of Israel, know of their displeasure.
The active presence of agents of any foreign country within the workings of America’s cherished democratic electoral processes is not only deeply insulting (let’s not forget how immediately and indignantly Israeli officials respond to any suggestion by any American official that they alter course or consider other options) but also demands a thorough analysis and a no-nonsense response.
David Ben Gurion gave sage advice when he told Zionists to: “never allow Israel to become a partisan issue in the U.S.” American Zionism ignored Ben Gurion by allowing its influence to be seen and understood by a public growing evermore alert to election interference. Sad.
Question for Any Zionist: Is it antisemitic according to IHRA to suggest that domestic American Zionism is alarmingly out of touch with American voters and that its continued involvement in elections is resented at the grassroots level and beyond?
View here a selection of 13 recent posters titled The Zionist Tears Series