Last November, shortly after Israel began its savage bombardment of Gaza,
newly elevated House Speaker Mike Johnson led a fast-track approval of $14
billion in military aid for Israel’s war.
In the weeks that followed, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee
delivered $95,000 in campaign contributions to Johnson.
As
The Intercept’s D.C. bureau chief and a veteran of
Capitol Hill reporting, this is far from the first time I’ve
seen AIPAC wield its financial might.
In fact, The Intercept team and I have been tracking AIPAC’s
spending and lobbying activity for years, and with one in every 25 Palestinians
in Gaza now killed or wounded and 90 percent of the entire Gaza population
facing starvation, it’s absolutely critical that the
American people understand the influence of AIPAC in Congress.
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Last year, I reported about how AIPAC offered $100,000 to Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez in 2018 shortly after she defeated incumbent Joe Crowley in the
Democratic primary. This massive, unsolicited campaign donation was offered, in
the words of the AIPAC representative, to “start the
conversation” between the pro-Israel lobbying group and
the representative-to-be.
“This was basically a bag filled with cash,” one of her aides told me later.
Ocasio-Cortez turned down the money, and in the years since, she has seen
the other side of AIPAC’s powerful “carrot-and-stick” approach to politics. In 2022, AIPAC spent $30 million targeting
progressive Democrats and members of “the Squad,” the group of lawmakers aligned with Ocasio-Cortez, making
AIPAC the No. 1 biggest outside spender in Democratic primaries that year.
In the 2024 cycle, AIPAC is going even bigger. The group has already emerged
as by far the biggest donor to the campaign of George Latimer, the
AIPAC-recruited candidate challenging Squad member Jamaal Bowman. In fact,
fully 42 percent of Latimer’s entire campaign budget so
far has come from AIPAC. Summer Lee, Cori Bush, and Ilhan Omar are all facing
strong challenges backed by “pro-Israel” groups.
Sadly, it’s by no means obvious that AIPAC’s success in steering American policy toward Israel has been
good for Israel or for Israelis. Instead, the hawkishness has further locked
the country into an endless conflict.
With
bombs still falling in Gaza and the International Court of Justice warning of
possible genocide and mass starvation, it’s critical
for Americans to understand AIPAC’s role in U.S.
politics.
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