The Shift: AIPAC favorite David Trone goes down in Maryland

So long, David Trone.

The billionaire owner of Total Wine left his House seat in Maryland’s 6th district to run for Senator. On Tuesday night, he lost the Democratic primary to George’s County executive Angela Alsobrooks by double digits.

Trone pumped more than $60 million into his campaign, spending almost ten times more than Alsobrooks.

In Congress, Trone was a staunch opponent of the BDS movement and even stopped donating to the ACLU over their defense of boycotts. He was an AIPAC donor, contributing at least $100,000 to the lobbying organization every year.

Having said all that, Alsobrooks is hardly supporter of Palestine. She expressed support for Biden’s recent decision to hold up a weapons shipment over Rafah, but she’s gone out of her way to distance herself from Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) who has criticized Israel with stronger language. She’s also bizarrely referred to The Squad as “anti-almost everything.”

In 2019 she traveled to Israel and met with some military leaders. “We got to discuss the shared interest that the United States and Israel have, and that we have not only shared values around democracy, and freedom and human rights, but there are also a number of shared interests that we have that keep us as allies,” she explained.

There was other news in Maryland as well.

AIPAC’s United Democracy Project Super PAC spent more than $4 million to help state senator Sarah Elfreth notch a victory in Maryland’s open 3rd district primary. This was a loaded field, as she was running against more than 20 other candidates. AIPAC’s big target was former Capitol police officer Harry Dunn who defended the building during the Jan 6th insurrection.

There’s been much made about AIPAC’s vast spending this election cycle, but the third district race showcases how the political terrain has shifted. Most people vaguely aware of AIPAC might assume they show up to communities to spend big on ardent Zionists who are up against legit progressives, but what’s going on here? They spent millions of dollars to defeat a former cop and elect a woman who barely mentions Israel at all.

Here’s Akela Lacy writing in The Intercept last week:

It’s not clear what drew AIPAC into the race. At a forum in April, both candidates offered support for efforts by Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., to condition aid to Israel. Dunn himself has been supportive of Israel and has said the country has a right to defend itself. He has supported sending U.S. funding to Israel and increasing humanitarian aid to Gaza. Dunn has not been outspoken against human rights abuses by Israel or U.S. military aid. And Elfreth is not running a particularly pro-Israel campaign. 

A United Democracy Project spokesperson told Jewish Insider the group was not concerned about Dunn’s position on Israel, but that it was spending on the race to ensure Elfreth won out over other candidates in the race it described as “anti-Israel.”

The super PAC said it was supporting Elfreth because of her position on other issues like the right to abortion, climate change, and domestic violence. Dunn is campaigning on a similar platform, emphasizing the right to abortion, strengthening voting rights, environmental protection, and working toward Medicare for All. 

Time will tell if this adds up to anything. You might recall that Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) only seemed supportive of Israel in the standard “two-state solution” way before allowing DMFI to rewrite his policy paper on Israel. Now he functions as one of Netanyahu’s mouthpieces in Congress.

Finally, we turn to the “Uncommitted” movement, which mobilized thousands to send Biden a clear message yet again. More than 47,000 Democratic voters chose the option.

Here’s Zainab Chaudry of the Listen to Maryland Coalition: “This significant demonstration of dissent highlights the deep concern and frustration felt by many Marylanders regarding the catastrophic violence and and suffering in Gaza and the West Bank. By casting their votes for the uncommitted candidate, voters have made it clear that they stand against any form of support for the ongoing genocide in Gaza enabled by the current administration.”

Biden Resignations

In last week’s newsletter, we covered the bipartisan freakout over Biden suspending a single weapons shipment to Israel. Here we are a week later with the administration set to send the country another $1 billion in weapons.

This week, The Wall Street Journal reported on a new weapons package that will include roughly $700 million for tank ammunition, $500 million for tactical vehicles, and $60 million in mortar rounds.

Every week there seems to be a new reminder that mainstream stories about Biden’s private frustrations add up to virtually nothing.

Biden’s decision to give Israel more weapons to commit war crimes comes amid new polls showing Trump leading him across multiple swing states. As you know, a permanent ceasefire and conditioning of military support is broadly popular among Democratic voters, particularly young Democrats.

Biden’s support for genocide continues to inspire resignations.

In November Major Harrison Mann quit his job with the Defense Intelligence Agency and this week he posted a letter on LinkedIn explaining his decision.

“I told myself my individual contribution was minimal, and that if I didn’t do my job, someone else would, so why cause a stir for nothing?” wrote Mann. “I told myself I don’t make policy and it’s not my place to question it…At some point — whatever the justification — you’re either advancing a policy that enables the mass starvation of children, or you’re not.”

“I know that I did, in my small way, wittingly advance that policy,” he continued. “And I want to clarify that as the descendant of European Jews, I was raised in a particularly unforgiving moral environment when it came to the topic of bearing responsibility for ethnic cleansing.”

This week we also saw a Biden staffer become the first Jewish appointee to quit.

Lily Greenberg Call resigned from her position as special assistant to the chief of staff in the US Interior Department, saying “in good conscience continue to represent” the administration.

“The president has the power to call for a lasting cease-fire, to stop sending weapons to Israel, and to condition aid,” she wrote. “The United States has used nearly no leverage throughout the last eight months to hold Israel accountable. Quite the opposite, we have enabled and legitimized Israel’s actions with vetoes of United Nations resolutions designed to hold Israel accountable. President Biden has the blood of innocent people on his hands.”

In her letter, Call says her whole life has been spent as part of the Jewish Community in the United States and Israel. What’s interesting about this case is that Call was formerly devoted to Zionist cause. In college she was president of an AIPAC affiliate group. In 2022 she wrote a piece for Teen Vogue about she began questioning her support for the organization.

“By accepting AIPAC’s support, progressive lawmakers give legitimacy to AIPAC’s policies of unconditional support for a government carrying out what many observers believe are human rights abuses, while simultaneously undermining their own work toward a truly multiracial democracy here,” she wrote.

The Call resignation symbolizes a wider shift happening among young people, and poll indicate that includes young Jewish people as well. It will become harder and harder for antisemitism charges to stick to Palestine activists with stories like these.

Odds & Ends

🇺🇸 Biden is sending Israel another $1 billion in weapons

🇺🇸 Biden’s shifting ‘red line’ allows Israel to keep getting away with murder

🏫 UC San Diego students condemn university stance

💸 Princeton Alumni call on university to divest and end complicity in genocide

🏫 The students did not invent the encampments. We inherited them.

🏫 Public statement from Emory arrestees

⛺ UC protests test the limits of Zionist fiction

🗣️ Outside agitators: How the power elite talk about dissent

🧏 Truthout: How One Student Gaza Encampment Built a Model for Deaf Accessibility

🇺🇸 In These Times: “This Is in the Spirit of Our Tradition”: The First Jewish Biden Appointee Resigns Over Gaza

📰 Electronic Intifada: Read an article on the student intifada censored by The Boston Globe

🚫 The Guardian: Anti-Defamation League ramps up lobbying to promote controversial definition of antisemitism

🇮🇱 Responsible Statecraft: Mark Milley throws US military under the bus for Israel

🇺🇸 HuffPost: House Democrats Fume Over Unprecedented Israeli Rebuke Of Lawmakers

💰 Sludge: AIPAC Places $1.9 Million Ad Buy to Oust Bowman

🇵🇸 Reuters: White House sees no genocide in Gaza, condemns aid convoy attacks

🇮🇱 Responsible Statecraft: Biden’s Gaza policy risks re-election but pleases his wealthiest donors

📝 Congress member Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) has introduced a bill recognizing the Nakba.

“The Nakba never ended. Today we are witnessing the Israeli apartheid government carry out genocide in Gaza. A campaign to erase Palestinians from existence,” said Tlaib in a statement. “Over 1.7 million Palestinians have been displaced from their homes. Over 35,000 Palestinians have been killed. Children are starving to death. The entire population of Gaza is on the brink of famine. Mass graves with over 390 bodies were recently discovered at Nasser and Al Shifa hospitals. As we mark the 76th anniversary of the Nakba, we honor all the lives lost since the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians began, and the Palestinians who were forced from their homes and violently displaced from their land. This immense trauma, including the loss of their loved ones and connections to the communities they grew up in, needs to be acknowledged. True peace must include the presence of justice.”

The legislation also calls on  to reinstate support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). It’s cosponsored by Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Cori Bush (D-MO), and André Carson (D-IN).

Tlaib introduced similar legislation in 2022.

🇺🇸 Anti-Zionist Israeli historian Ilan Pappe says he was interrogated by the FBI after arriving in Detroit this week. Pappe says the agents asked if he supported Hamas and whether he believed the assault on Gaza was a genocide.

“I know many of you have fared far worse experience, but after France and Germany denied entry to the Rector of Glasgow university for being a Palestinian… God know what will happen next,” wrote Pappe on Facebook. “Actions like this by the USA or European countries taken under pressure from the pro-Israeli lobby or Israel itself smell of sheer panic and desperation in reaction to Israel’s becoming very soon a pariah state with all the implications of such a status.”