Jewish Mafia Donates $100 Million in Stolen Loot to Fund AIPAC’s War Crimes Protection

$280 billion of American taxpayer dollars have been invested in US/Israeli ethnic cleansing and occupation operations since 1948; $150 billion in direct “aid” and $130 billion in “attack” contracts
Source: Embassy of Israel, Washington, DC and US Department of State.

BRETT WILKINS

The powerful lobby group American Israel Public Affairs Committee is expected to spend nine figures in a bid to unseat more than half a dozen progressive US lawmakers who have been critical of Israeli human rights abuses in Palestine. Slatereported on Wednesday.

Slate Political writer Alex Sammon wrote that “close observers now expect AIPAC to spend at least $100 million in the 2024 Democratic primaries, largely aimed at unseating incumbent Squad members.”

Sammon said Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) and Summer Lee (D-Pa.) — “the most vocal and unapologetically left-wing contingent of the Democratic Party in national office” — are among AIPAC’s top targets.

“The price of defending apartheid continues to rise,” joked Palestinian-American writer and political analyst Yousef Munayyer in response to the report.

Ohio political activist Nina Turner wrote on social media: “This is anti-blackness. Period.”

Tlaib, the only Palestinian-American member of Congress, has accused Israel of genocide for killing and maiming tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza and forcibly displacing nearly three-quarters of the besieged Strip’s population. Many experts agree with her characterization.

Tlaib, Omar, Bush and a handful of other Democratic lawmakers have also called Israel an apartheid state. This view is shared by a growing number of human rights groups, international figures and even former Israeli government officials.

But the furthest the most progressive Democrats have gone in criticizing Israeli policies and practices was to support a resolution Bush introduced last month calling on US President Joe Biden to pressure Israel’s far-right government to agree to a ceasefire in Gaza.

On Wednesday, two dozen House members, led by Reps. Ocasio-Cortez, Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), sent a letter to Biden calling for a ceasefire.

As Sammon noted, a recent poll by Data for Progress found that two-thirds of American voters, including 80% of Democrats, also support a ceasefire.

Connor Farrell, president of the progressive fundraising group Left Rising, told Sammon that AIPAC “wants to send the message this cycle that no one is safe from their wrath, that if you speak out, you can be targeted no matter how popular you are or how many cycles of incumbent politicians you’ve had.”

“It’s extraordinarily daring,” Farrell added.

Progressive Democrats are no strangers to AIPAC spending big money in attempts to smear, defeat, or dethrone them. As Sammon noted:

In the 2022 midterm elections, the Israel lobby became the largest single-issue outside spender in Democratic primaries, spending nearly $30 million through the super PAC United Democracy Project, and millions more through the Democratic Majority for Israel PAC. It was an astronomical sum, largely aimed at knocking progressives out of the primaries, largely in open and redrawn seats.

AIPAC’s heavy spending was blamed for Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) defeating incumbent Rep. Andy Levin, a self-described Zionist Jew, in the Democratic primary in Michigan’s 11th Congressional District last year.

Conversely, some of Israel’s most ardent supporters in Congress have benefited from AIPAC’s largesse. The group was the largest donor to both House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) during the last election cycle.

AIPAC has also been a top contributor to lawmakers like Reps. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) and Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), who have not only vocally supported Israel but also attacked colleagues like Tlaib and Omar for their pro-Palestinian positions. AIPAC was by far Gottheimer’s largest contributor in the 2022 election cycle, donating more than $216,000 to his campaign. The same goes for Torres, who received more than $141,000 from the group during the same period.

Some observers also believe it’s no coincidence that Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.) — whose third-largest campaign contributor during the last election cycle was AIPAC — filed a censure motion against Tlaib last month, baselessly calling her a terrorist sympathizer.

Progressive lawmakers have not taken AIPAC’s attacks lying down. Omar, who like Tlaib has received death threats after being attacked by the group, has accused the organization of endangering her life. Pocan earlier this month called AIPAC “a cancerous presence on our democracy and politics in general.”

“I don’t give a damn what AIPAC is,” he said after the group falsely accused him and other representatives of “trying to keep Hamas in power.”

AIPAC has also come under fire from Democrats of all stripes for backing more than 100 Republican U.S. lawmakers who voted to undermine the 2020 presidential election in service of former President Donald Trump’s “Big Lie” that Democrats rigged the election.

Alluding to the right-wing support for the group, Bush said wrote on social media Wednesday that “AIPAC is trying to buy blue seats with GOP donor money.”

Sammon wrote that AIPAC’s attempt to turn off popular Democrats comes with risks for the group:

Toppling an incumbent isn’t easy. Tlaib, Omar, Bush, Bowman, Pressley, and Ocasio-Cortez are all well-liked, especially in their districts. Some, like Tlaib, are masters of voter services. Others have demonstrated incredible fundraising skills and boast vast grassroots networks. There have been previous attempts to take down Tlaib and Ocasio-Cortez that failed spectacularly and expensively. Omar, who looked vulnerable in her last race, didn’t really campaign then. AIPAC can bring itself to burn cash fighting on inhospitable terrain. And if it fails, the group’s fearsome reputation in DC will be significantly tarnished.

“That AIPAC feels the need to spend so much money could be seen as a sign of weakness, not strength,” Sammon added. “Unrestricted Israeli militarism is already deeply unpopular; a year of bombing Palestinian hospitals and mass child casualties in Gaza could make the AIPAC line even more unpopular.”

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BRETT WILKINS

Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.