Members of both parties spent months last year lambasting Rep. Ilhan Omar for claiming that the pro-Israel lobby influences US policy and discourse with its political spending. As the controversy’s latest installment plays out, federal campaign finance records show the pro-Israel lobby is doing just that. A Mondoweiss analysis of Federal Election Commission records and Facebook’s ad library found pro-Israel PACs have spend around $2 million in an effort to oust Omar.
Pro-Israel forces are seeking to smear Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar as antisemitic because she made an issue of the fact that her opponent in Aug. 11 primary has raised millions from out-of-state donors.
The late civil rights hero John Lewis was a “steadfast” supporter of Israel, lobby groups said in mourning him, even if he did also show concern late in career for Palestinian rights. His likely successor, Nikema Williams, took an Israel-lobby-sponsored trip to Israel two years ago.
Biden defers to rightwing Israel lobby on Israel, blocking use of word “occupation” in the draft 2020 Democratic Party platform. He is clearly worried about losing Florida, and donors, to Trump. And you wonder why his Jewish outreach aide has endorsed a Republican over Ilhan Omar, or why Chuck Schumer paid no price for betraying Obama on the Iran deal.
Trump wants Israel “to move forward with annexation to create a wedge issue visavis Joe Biden and the Democratic Party [to have] a hard political tool to use against Democrats in a very tight election. We all remember last summer the brouhaha that Trump created over the potential visit of Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar to Israel and accusing the Democratic Party of being leftwing radicals,” Israeli journalist Neri Zilber tells J Street webinar.
Rep. Ilhan Omar’s challenger, Antone Melton-Meaux, repeats talking points of pro-Israel lobbyists. And his willingness to do so has earned him a sizeable warchest, nearly $500,000.
Amidst coronavirus crisis, Ilhan Omar is calling for the U.S. to suspend its sanctions on Iran.
Trump has a political calculation in embracing Netanyahu’s annexation of the West Bank. He wants to get 40 percent of the Jewish vote, as Reagan did in 1980. And in a warning to Democrats, Haim Saban, Hillary’s big supporter, said he likes the plan.
MuzzleWatch is a new Mondoweiss column that will focus on attempts to silence the voices, actions, and campaigns working for justice in Israel and Palestine. In the first installment, Rob Lipton looks at how Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib have been targeted by a “vast international operation” that leverages Facebook far-right pages to “inflame Islamophobia for profit.”
Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) revealed in late October that members of Congress are planning another delegation to Palestine and this time “the permission has to include Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar.” Pocan’s remarks introducing Palestinian writer Yousef Aljamal show that support for the rights of all Palestinians is growing within the 98-member-strong Congressional Progressive Caucus.