CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Lessons from Michigan: How Standing Up to Israeli Genocide Could Win Democrats Congress

Abdul El-Sayed, photo Wikipedia.

At 2 AM Michigan time last night, NBC projected that AIPAC’s candidate was on her way to look for a new job. Representative Haley Stevens’ defeat in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary is the last nail in AIPAC’s coffin. The once-feared Israel lobby is sinking, along with Israel, like a stone in American public opinion. Despite sixty-to-one spending against Abdul El-Sayed, Stevens couldn’t keep her head above water. AIPAC and its Israel-first Jewish billionaires turned Michigan into the most expensive Democratic Senate primary in American history and lost anyway.

Just think about it for a second: a PAC that backs a conservative candidate who champions tax cuts for billionaires in one congressional district while simultaneously bankrolling a liberal, like Stevens, who wants to tax the wealthy in another is not advancing a coherent American political interest. If the only principle uniting those otherwise incongruent endorsements is unwavering support for Israel, then the PAC is driven not by a domestic ideology or constituency, but by a foreign policy agenda.

Now, after spending millions to elect a Democrat, Stevens, AIPAC is all but certain to pour millions behind a Republican, Mike Rogers, in November—not for the sake of Michiganders or Americans, but for Israel. That is the essence of AIPAC: partisan differences are irrelevant so long as the candidate serves Tel Aviv’s interests.

The Democratic establishment squandered its remaining credibility kowtowing to AIPAC, the most powerful foreign lobby, widening the chasm between the Democratic base and its leadership. AIPAC funding and endorsements from Democratic leaders like Chuck Schumer and Gretchen Whitmer carried little weight in Democratic primaries.

Ask Adriano Espaillat. Ask........

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