Uncategorized
Trying to influence progressives in New Jersey, AIPAC may actually help one get elected
Politics has always been a dirty business – just ask King David, Socrates or Confucius. But AIPAC’s latest reckless move should raise even the most cynical of eyebrows.
It’s happening here in my home district, New Jersey’s 11th, which has had a vacant congressional seat since former congresswoman Mikie Sherrill became governor last month. The primary election is Thursday, and since this is a deep blue district, it’s almost certain that the Democratic nominee will go to Washington in a few months.
Not surprisingly, the field is crowded, but four front-runners have emerged: former congressman Tom Malinowski, who narrowly lost his seat in 2022 after his district was redrawn; Essex county commissioner Brendan Gill; former lieutenant governor Tahesha Way; and progressive Analilia Mejia, who has been endorsed by Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and seemingly the entire left wing of the party.
In the last month, a group called the United Democracy Project has been attacking Malinowski from the left, alleging that he supports ICE. Factually, this is poppycock: Malinowski has vociferously spoken out against ICE’s excesses. But he did vote for an omnibus, bipartisan DHS funding bill in 2019, which included funding for ICE.
Unfair, perhaps, but also fair enough — this is politics as usual.
What’s unusual is that the “United Democracy Project” is actually a Super PAC affiliated with AIPAC, as reported in this publication a few weeks ago. Even more unusual is that AIPAC has poured over $2.2 million into this primary election, according to FEC data. And even more unusual than that is the fact that AIPAC, which has embraced Republicans and the Trump administration for their support of the Netanyahu government, is suddenly taking a progressive, anti-Trump line by targeting a candidate for supporting ICE.
Except, of course, that is all a shell game.
AIPAC isn’t running ICE ads because they care about immigrants; they’re attacking Malinowski for his temerity to defy AIPAC’s demand that aid to Israel be completely unconditional, which no other foreign aid ever is. A spokesman for “United Democracy Project” told Punchbowl News that the organization turned on Malinowski because “he talks about conditioning aid — that’s not a pro-Israel position, and he knows it.”
AIPAC also knows that, because of a quirk of congressional rules, Malinowski would become a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, because previous stints in Congress count for seniority purposes. And because, before serving in Congress, Malinowski was the assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor under President Obama, he is widely respected as a foreign policy expert and would surely become a key member of the committee.
So, why is AIPAC making a target of a potential ally? Notice how the goalposts have shifted: Malinowski is not an anti-Zionist. He’s not even a critic of Israel, like Rep. Jamaal Bowman, who AIPAC spent $14 million to defeat in 2024. He espouses the same views as a majority of the American Jews: supportive of Israel as a Jewish state with a right to defend itself, but critical of the Netanyahu government’s actions in Gaza, which killed over 70,000 people. (The government recently accepted the Gaza/Hamas Health Ministry’s casualty numbers, after Israel’s right-wing supporters spent two years attacking journalists who cited them. No apologies for said attacks have been issued.)
On this issue, Malinowski is a centrist Democrat, not a progressive firebrand. Yet, Malinowski said at a recent event I attended in Montclair, AIPAC wants to make an example of him. Cross us, and we will come for you – no matter how moderate you are.
Rep. Ilhan Omar was excoriated for an offhand remark she made in 2019 that AIPAC’s power is “all about the Benjamins,” using a common slang term for hundred dollar bills. But AIPAC has dropped more than 22,000 Benjamins on one primary race to warn everyone not to cross them. Though she later apologized (under duress) for invoking antisemitic tropes about Jews and money, in terms of AIPAC’s political power, Omar was right.
Presumably, AIPAC is hoping that its efforts will turn voters away from Malinowski, who currently has a small lead, and toward Way or Gill, who, disappointingly, have declined to condemn the ads.
But if you’re paying attention to the NJ-11 race, you might suspect that their efforts will have an unintended effect: boosting Mejia, who, unlike Malinowski, is a strong critic of Israel in the familiar Sanders/Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez/ZohranMamdani mode.
Think about it: Who benefits from AIPAC’s ads? Yes, Gill, like Malinowski, has spoken out against Trump and ICE – I saw him give an inspiring speech at a ‘No Kings’ rally a few months ago. But after a year of mainstream Democrats being perceived as ineffectual in their opposition to Trump, no one’s going to be motivated by an anti-ICE ad to vote for either of the Democratic machine’s candidates.
No, they’re going to vote for the strongest progressive in the race, and that is clearly Mejia, who is running in second place and has Rep. Ro Khanna visiting the district. (Khanna is fighting his own battle with AIPAC, which is spending to defeat him this year.) Along with Khanna, legions of Indivisible activists are doing Get Out The Vote work for Mejia. The wind is at her back, and AIPAC just gave her a squall.
To be sure, Mejia is not running on Israel, Gaza or support for Palestinians. She is following the successful progressive ‘affordability’ playbook, highlighting her support for a $15 minimum wage, free child care, Medicare for All and so on. Israel does not appear on her campaign website at all.
But she’s not hiding her views either. At a candidates forum last week, she affirmed that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza, and pledged not to visit Israel on a trip sponsored by AIPAC. (No other candidate in this race took those positions.) And she has spent many years as a progressive activist expressing similar views.
The irony would be rich: AIPAC defeats a supporter of Israel, and puts another Squad member in the House instead. Talk about instant karma.
And then there’s the bigger picture. As everyone knows, the last two years have seen an unprecedented rise in antisemitism, along with conspiratorial thinking of all kinds – especially because, as we now see from the latest Epstein Files release, some of the conspiracies are real. And it’s at this moment that the leading organization of the “Israel Lobby” covertly tries to bait progressives into voting a certain way? Do they not see that this kind of secretive manipulation is exactly what the antisemites say about us?
Obviously, AIPAC is not responsible for antisemitism, and even if they played fair, bigotry would not go away. And again, politics is a dirty business. But did no one in the room even raise this as a concern? That it might be problematic for the Israel Lobby to hide its identity, lie to progressives (many of whom, of course, would be repulsed to learn that AIPAC is targeting them), and, under false pretenses, persuade them to vote for AIPAC’s agenda? Do they have no concern for how this conspiratorial chicanery might enflame antisemitic sentiments, or, God forbid, actions?
At this point, I can’t tell who I’m rooting for more: Malinowski, to show AIPAC that not every politician can be intimidated, or Mejia, to hand them a massive self-own. Either way, AIPAC would get what it deserves. I just hope no one else pays the price.
The post Trying to influence progressives in New Jersey, AIPAC may actually help one get elected appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Mamdani touts ‘Babies not Bombs’ messaging after flexing political muscle in the New York primaries
(New York Jewish Week) — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani celebrated the victories of the progressive candidates he endorsed in New York’s Democratic primaries describing their success as a “shift in the balance of power.”
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, the morning after the primaries, Mamdani touted the triumphs as a shift in the balance of power between “working people” and “special interests.”
Mamdani-endorsed candidates Brad Lander, Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez won Democratic nominations for Congress. During the press conference, the mayor repeatedly highlighted their calls to restrict U.S. military aid to Israel and redirect federal funding to domestic priorities.
Following Mamdani’s election night sweep in New York, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that “America the Beautiful will NEVER be a Communist Country!!!”
The victories offered an early demonstration of Mamdani’s political influence beyond City Hall, as several Democratic Socialist candidates he backed, including Chevalier, defeated established Democratic incumbents in their districts.
“The working person is struggling in our city to afford basic needs,” Mamdani said, adding that Avila Chevalier’s oft-repeated slogan of investing in “Babies not Bombs,” is “the kind of conscience, the kind of clarity, the kind of conviction that has been missing in our politics for far too long.”
Mamdani responded to the president’s post on Wednesday, telling a reporter who asked whether his goal is to make America a “socialist” country that his “goal is to make America a place that every American can afford.”
When asked about federal policies that could be affected by Mamdani’s endorsed candidates, the mayor cited Valdez’s support for “foreign policy that understands human rights for all” and Lander’s commitment to co-sponsoring the Block the Bombs Act, which prohibits the sale of certain U.S.-made offensive weapons to Israel.
Mamdani also dismissed a question about whether he was concerned about how the victories would play out in November as Democrats try to win back the House.
“Every time the fight for working people takes a step forward, you will hear Republicans say that this is actually going to jeopardize the existence of that very fight,” he said.
When asked whether the election of Chevalier, who has faced scrutiny for past social media posts attacking Democrats and her appearance at an Oct. 8, 2023, pro-Palestinian rally in Times Square, could “complicate campaigns for Democrats as a whole,” Mamdani replied “No.”
“[Chevalier] often speaks about a politics of life. She speaks about ‘Babies not bombs,’” Mamdani continued. “What could be a better example of what the people of the district want to see versus what the people of the district have been forced to experience, which is tens of billions of dollars being spent at a national level to bomb children overseas, while children in our own districts are struggling.”
The post Mamdani touts ‘Babies not Bombs’ messaging after flexing political muscle in the New York primaries appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Jewish anti-Zionist David Orkin defeats incumbent in NY Assembly primary
(New York Jewish Week) — David Orkin, a Jewish anti-Zionist attorney and democratic socialist, defeated incumbent New York State Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar in Tuesday’s Democratic primary. Orkin won State Assembly District 38, which includes parts of Queens.
Orkin, an immigrant workers’ rights attorney and union organizer, received 58.8% of the vote, while Rajkumar, who has represented the district since 2021 and is the first South Asian woman ever elected to office in the state, received 40.9%. The district covers a swath of Queens, including parts of Ridgewood, Glendale, Ozone Park, Woodhaven and Richmond Hill.
“Pro-Palestine candidates are sweeping in NYC tonight,” Jewish Voice for Peace Action wrote in a post on Instagram celebrating Orkin’s win Tuesday. “Palestine was on the ballot — and won. David will be a champion for Palestinian freedom in Albany.”
The post from JVP Action echoed a message Orkin had highlighted throughout his campaign.
“It’s so incredibly meaningful to me to be running this race as an anti-Zionist Jew, to be one of the few anti-Zionist Jewish voices that is in an elected seat in the state government,” Orkin said in an Instagram reel posted by Jewish Voice for Peace Action earlier this month.
He added that, if elected, he would be able to go in front of the state legislature and assert that “criticizing Israel for genocide, demanding an end to the occupation, demanding an end to funding war abroad is not antisemitic.”
Orkin’s victory came amid a strong night for democratic socialist candidates across New York City, including left-wing congressional candidates Brad Lander, Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez, who also defeated establishment-backed opponents in their primaries.
While Orkin was not endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whose winning endorsements of Lander, Chevalier and Valdez signaled a pro-Palestinian lurch for the party in the city with the world’s largest Jewish population outside of Israel. Nonetheless, his victory elevated a self-described anti-Zionist to the ranks of New York’s elected officials at a time when debates over Israel have become increasingly prominent within Democratic politics.
While Israel-related issues were not listed on Orkin’s platform, which centered on affordability and immigration, he repeatedly expressed his support for a “free Palestine” and attacked Rajkumar’s record of support for the Jewish state during his campaign.
“In the past several years my opponent AM Rajkumar has walked in the Israel day parade but has said NOTHING against the war in Gaza, occupation of Palestine, or Islamophobic attacks faced by the people of New York,” Orkin wrote in a May post on X.
Rajkumar, who was a close political ally of former New York City Mayor Eric Adams, in her campaign platform vowed to combat antisemitism.
After establishing a Jewish Voice for Peace chapter in Tucson, Arizona, in 2014, Orkin remained involved in pro-Palestinian activism as a member of the anti-Zionist activist group.
“I’ve been involved in the Jewish Palestine Solidarity Movement for 12, 13 years,” Orkin told Democratic Left last month. “I’ve dedicated part [of my] life to making sure that Jewish people are creating religious spaces outside of Zionism, and to making more space for Palestinian organizing to have an impact.”
On the campaign trail, Orkin received a host of endorsements from prominent progressive groups and lawmakers, including Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, JVP Action and NYC Democratic Socialists for America.
Rajkumar was endorsed by ActJew, the new nonprofit focused on combatting antisemitism, as well as the Queens Jewish Alliance and Assemblymembers Sam Berger, Kalman Yeger and Chuck Lavine.
Orkin received over $290,000 in campaign contributions for the election cycle, including over $156,000 from the office of the state comptroller, while Rajkumar received over $270,000, including $9,000 from health care executive Daniel Lowy.
“I have dedicated my life fighting for immigrants and workers, I am proud to have earned their support in this election, and I look forward to spending the rest of my life winning the beautiful and joyous lives we deserve,” Orkin said in a statement, according to QNS.
The post Jewish anti-Zionist David Orkin defeats incumbent in NY Assembly primary appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Half of Americans think the U.S. is ‘too supportive’ of Israel
(JTA) — A new survey found that 48% of American voters think the United States is “too supportive” of Israel, the highest since the pollster started asking the question in 2017.
The survey published Wednesday by Quinnipiac University also found that 60% of respondents reported that military intervention in Iran was “not worth it” as opposed to 34% of voters who said it was “worth it.”
The number of respondents who think the U.S. support of Israel is about right is 38%, while just 7% think the U.S. is not supportive enough of Israel, the poll found.
Broken down by party, 66% of Democrats think the U.S. is too supportive of Israel, while 9% think it is not supportive enough and 18% think U.S. support for Israel is about right.
Among Republicans, 20% think the U.S. is too supportive of Israel, 69% think American support for Israel is “about right,” and 6% think the U.S. is not supportive enough.
Among independent voters, 55% think the U.S. is too supportive of Israel, 34% think U.S. support for Israel is about right, and 7% think the U.S. is not supportive enough.
The poll data were released one day after three Democrats critical of Israel swept their House primary races in New York City, and in races around the country even some reliably pro-Israel Democratic candidates distanced themselves from the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC.
A survey last year by Gallup found dwindling support for Israel among Democrats, as well as waning support among Republicans.
Still the party divide was also in sharp evidence in the latest poll. In responses to the question about whether the Iran war was “worth it”, Democrats disfavored military action in Iran at 93% and independents at 66%, while 75% of Republicans surveyed thought it was “worth it.”
Given a list of 10 issues and asked which, if any, they considered priorities in their decision-making process in the election for the U.S. House of Representatives, 41% of voters cited the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, above AI data centers (38%) and Donald Trump (38%). The high cost of living (70%) and health care (59%) topped the list.
The Quinnipiac poll was conducted from June 18 to 22, and includes responses from 1,165 self-identified registered voters.
The margin of error is 3.4 percentage points.
Among those surveyed, 48% said they had an unfavorable view of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Twenty percent said they had a favorable opinion, and 30% “haven’t heard enough” about him.
“Netanyahu gets poor marks from American voters as their appetite for supporting Israel wanes, with the share of voters who think the U.S. is too supportive of Israel hitting a new high,” Quinnipiac polling analyst Tim Malloy wrote in the report.
Voters were also asked about their views on the June 17 memorandum of understanding with Iran, which begins a 60-day negotiation period that does not outline an end to Iran’s nuclear program.
“After months of diplomatic fits and starts, global economic repercussions and a broad loss of life in the region, a majority of voters make their feelings clear: the Iran war was a bad idea,” Malloy wrote.
Voters who are either not confident or “not so confident” that the deal will succeed numbered 59%, and 61% think it is either likely or very likely that Iran will develop nuclear weapons.
The post Half of Americans think the U.S. is ‘too supportive’ of Israel appeared first on The Forward.
