What Jamaal Bowman’s defeat means

There is a lot to say about the disappointing, though not unexpected, defeat of Jamaal Bowman in New York’s 16^th congressional District’s Democratic primary. But we should start with one inspiring and solemn point.

Bowman was elected in 2020 in a district that was always going to be tricky to hold. Though a strongly Democratic district, redistricting over the past decade brought in more affluent neighborhoods and assigned several poor and working class working class neighborhoods to other districts. So it was quite a shock when Bowman unseated 32-year incumbent Eliot Engel in 2020.

Engel, one of the most pro-Israel members of Congress in the House, had grown complacent after consecutive elections where he faced no serious challenge. He didn’t think a middle school principal had any chance against him. He was mistaken.

But the Jamaal Bowman who defeated Engel ran on a domestic agenda, and focused on the needs of working people and on confronting racism with a powerful voice.  He criticized Engel for his hawkish foreign policy, but he mostly rode in to Congress on a progressive wave of supporters, many of whom have been bitterly disappointed in Joe Biden, whom they also helped to elect to get out from under Donald Trump. The awareness of racism that had been stirred by the police murder of George Floyd helped boost Bowman’s anti-racist message. 

Bowman did not feature foreign affairs in his first term. Like most of the Squad, with the exception of Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, he was not nearly as comfortable with foreign affairs as he was with domestic ones. Given that, he initially tried to be politically safe on Palestine. Then he went there.

At first, Bowman faced intense backlash from the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and others for going on a trip sponsored by the pro-Israel group J Street. But it turns out Bowman’s J Street trip pushed him into a stronger stance in support of Palestinian rights. As often happens, when Bowman actually saw and experienced what Israel was doing to the Palestinians on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, he knew he had to act. And he did.

Bowman’s second term featured much stronger criticism of Israel, even before the genocide in Gaza began. But since October 7, Bowman has been one of the loudest voices in Congress calling for an end to the slaughter. 

Jamaal Bowman is no fool, and he knows his district. He knew very well that being so outspoken on Israel was dangerous, and particularly so for him, being in a district that has a large Jewish population, one that is very supportive of Israel and the mainstream Jewish organizations. Moreover, even though his district is heavily Democratic, it also includes many relatively conservative Democrats who are not necessarily in favor of all of Bowman’s progressive economic policies.

Bowman knew he was taking a risk standing up for Palestine, a much greater one than some of his fellow Squad members. He did it anyway, because it was right. Yes, it was a politician taking a risky stand because it was the right thing to do, and doing it on behalf of people on the other side of the planet. That’s worth noting, and celebrating, even if Bowman had to pay for that stance with his job.

The meaning of Bowman’s defeat

All that said, there’s no doubt Bowman’s loss was a major setback for progressive causes in general and for Palestine in particular. AIPAC pumped a record amount of money, much of it from Trump-supporting Republicans, to defeat Bowman and bring in the conservative democrat, George Latimer to replace him. 

That matters, and it does send a message that AIPAC continues to have an enormous amount of money that it is willing to use in an overwhelming way to defeat candidates it doesn’t like. 

This was the most expensive primary in U.S. history. Nearly $25 million went into this primary, with $14.6 million of it coming in to Latimer from AIPAC’s PAC, the Orwellian-named United for Democracy, alone. Democratic Majority for Israel’s PAC kicked in another million. 

How much did that affect the race? If you listen to some of AIPAC’s apologists, they will say it didn’t. They will tell you Latimer was well ahead of Bowman before AIPAC’s money came into the race. They are arguing that AIPAC and DMFI simply threw $15 million away, and their donors are fine with that. It’s obviously not so.

But that unprecedented spending was also strategic. Bowman’s re-election in 2022 was essentially unchallenged because he hadn’t taken this controversial stand as strongly yet, and Democrats work very hard to avoid incumbents being primaried. But he was always vulnerable to a strong primary challenge, and AIPAC knew it. 

Even so, they threw enormous resources into this race, even beyond the money. The smear campaign over social and mainstream media was widespread, attempting to paint Bowman as antisemitic, and indifferent to the needs of his district. Bowman became a focus of media activism by the group. They unleashed everything they could. Latimer threw in a few racist dog whistles for good measure.

That was what was required to topple a congressman in a district with a considerable constituency within his own party that differs with him deeply on a key issue. That’s what it took to unseat a representative who crossed AIPAC’s line on Israel.

Poll after poll continues to show that Democrats oppose Israel’s actions in Gaza and a growing majority think Israel is committing genocide. That’s why AIPAC, with all its money and all its advertising, steered very clear of making this election a referendum on Israel and Palestine. That also says a lot.

The rise and fall of the Israel lobby

When AIPAC made the decision to create the United for Democracy PAC, it signaled a shift in strategy. For decades, AIPAC itself did not directly engage in campaign financing. Rather, they lobbied, engaged in public relations, and in general tried to dominate and control the discourse on Israel, both in Washington and in the broader public. They were able to implicitly, but quite clearly, signal to pro-Israel PACs where the money should go. They didn’t spend the money, but they controlled it. They were quite successful for a long time. 

But that started to change in the last decade as Israel lurched more visibly rightward with every election, and with ever successive assault on Palestinians in the West Bank and, especially Gaza. Those assaults were more visible than ever thanks to social media and cell phones. Israel’s image was taking a beating, and all the hasbara in the world couldn’t cover it up.

The Israeli right, unlike its more center-right sectors, simply plows ahead with no regard for appearances and public relations. That makes it harder to sell Israel as the “only democracy in the Middle East,” which was how AIPAC liked to operate. Rather than fight a losing battle to maintain a strategy that was being undermined by Israel itself, AIPAC decided to follow the Israeli lead and simply exercise naked power in a more visible way than it had.

Pumping a record amount of money into defeating Bowman is part of that strategy, but it has its long term drawbacks, even if it is successful in the short term. Even for those who make the classic “Palestine exception,” people don’t like to see big money swaying elections. That’s one reason pro-Israel forces are currently so eager to deny that the AIPAC money was decisive in defeating Bowman.

There’s good reason for that concern. AIPAC, once seen as a bipartisan defender of the “only democracy in the Middle East” is being rightly viewed more and more like the NRA: a massive lobby that uses political chicanery and the muscle of huge resources to warp policy on a divisive issue.

It is important for supporters of Palestinian rights to keep in mind that there is very real support for Israel, including for its Gaza genocide, in the United States, and that support, while much more overwhelming in the Republican party, remains significant among Democrats as well. Thus, there are districts, like Bowman’s, where taking a stand for Palestine is much riskier than in others. 

Bowman’s defeat cannot be easily replicated in districts that don’t already have a substantial Democratic constituency that is strongly supportive of Israel. Considering that, in such a district, AIPAC found a candidate who was well known and generally liked in George Latimer and still felt the need to throw an overwhelming and record-setting amount of money at defeating Bowman, there is good reason to believe that the tide is turning and that candidates critical of Israel can see brighter days ahead.

But those days are not here yet. The demise of the pro-Israel lobby is not yet upon us. The lobby has the money, and it has the resources to manipulate opinion, as The Guardian recently reported in covering a multi-million dollar project Israel has undertaken to spread its propaganda in a way that Russia could only dream of. 

The lobby’s strong-arm tactics still work. But the amount of effort they needed to defeat Jamaal Bowman shows they won’t work forever.