[ Across the country, pro-Israel groups and billionaires are
trying to stop the antiwar movement pushing for a cease-fire in Gaza
by bringing down its elected leaders, including Rashida Tlaib and
Ilhan Omar. These are fights the Left can win with popu]
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PRO-ISRAEL BILLIONAIRES ARE SPENDING BIG TO OUST SOCIALISTS FROM
OFFICE  
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Liza Featherstone
December 18, 2023
Jacobin
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_ Across the country, pro-Israel groups and billionaires are trying
to stop the antiwar movement pushing for a cease-fire in Gaza by
bringing down its elected leaders, including Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan
Omar. These are fights the Left can win with popu _

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hosting an AIPAC delegation at his
office in Jerusalem, Nov. 29, 2023. , Photo by Kobi Gideon/GPO.

 

Socialists in elected office are standing up for Palestinian rights
and demanding a cease-fire in Gaza. A handful of billionaires,
rejecting this progressive and popular agenda, are trying hard to take
down these antiwar lawmakers. As well, many conservative and centrist
Democratic candidates are launching primary challenges against them,
hoping to be the recipients of big campaign cash from the American
Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and similar pro-Israel
groups. AIPAC and its allies — like-minded organizations and big
donors — told
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York Times_ that they are going to spend big, probably far more than
in previous election cycles, to defeat anyone standing up for
Palestine. Many of their targets are members of Democratic Socialists
of America (DSA) or close allies of the organization.

It’s essential that we defend those elected officials who are
providing principled leadership to the Left in the midst of Israel’s
brutal assault on the Gaza Strip, which has so far killed more than
nineteen thousand Palestinians. Israeli president Benjamin
Netanyahu’s allies have plenty of money, but politically, they’re
flailing as international support for Israel’s war gradually
declines in the face of its indiscriminate bombing of civilians. The
call for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza is broadly popular, as are the
economic justice issues these officeholders champion, so these should
be winnable fights if the Left can stay organized. A 61 percent
majority of likely US voters believes
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United States should support a cease-fire, while only 28 percent
oppose such a move — even though only sixty-two members
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publicly called for one so far.

Michigan representative Rashida Tlaib may be number one on AIPAC’s
enemies list. The DSA-endorsed congresswoman, who is the only
Palestinian American to serve in the US House of Representatives,
has faced censure
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her colleagues for her Palestinian advocacy. Two Detroit Senate
candidates say that AIPAC offered them $20 million to abandon their
Senate races and run against her. Both refused, in pretty indignant
terms,
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despite the hefty political bounty on her head, Tlaib still doesn’t
have a serious primary opponent. AIPAC has for now resorted to
running attack ads
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her through its dark money arm, equating her advocacy for a cease-fire
in Gaza — and her participation in antiwar protests — with
enabling terrorists.

AIPAC has a genuine challenger for Missouri representative Cori Bush,
a democratic socialist activist from St Louis who introduced the House
bill calling for a cease-fire, around which so much of the antiwar
movement has mobilized. In an especially depraved move, Wesley Bell,
the prosecutor who investigated the Ferguson Police Department after
the infamous police murder of Michael Brown, switched his attentions
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unseating far-right Senator Josh Hawley — a worthy goal — to
launching a primary campaign against Bush, tapping into monied ire
over her cease-fire bill.

Most of the “Squad” will be targeted in 2024. AIPAC remains, as
the _Nation_ put it
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2022, “desperate to defeat Summer Lee.” The group has tried
backing both primary challengers and Republicans against the
Pennsylvania representative and former DSA member, and it is expected
to do so again in 2024. Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar, one of
the most principled anti-imperialist and pro-Palestinian voices in
office and a close ally of DSA members in Congress, faces multiple
primary challengers competing for AIPAC funds.

Perhaps most worrisome is the animus against Representative Jamaal
Bowman of New York. Bowman, ironically, left DSA when many members
felt he was not sufficiently supportive of the group’s stance on
Palestine, but he has turned out to be one of the strongest voices in
Washington regarding the urgency of a cease-fire and the injustice of
Israel’s occupation. Bowman’s seat may now be the most imperiled
of any Squad member, as AIPAC has recruited Westchester County
executive George Latimer to run against him, and Latimer may tap into
considerable pro-war sentiment in the district.

Bowman isn’t the only New York elected official being targeted — a
coalition of billionaires will also be taking aim at several state
officeholders. A recent repor
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in _Hell Gate_, a local New York City news site, confirmed rumors
that had been flying around for months: a group of centrist and
right-wing millionaires and billionaires, including Gil Cygler, a
rental car mogul, as well as bigger names like Ronald Lauder
(Republican diplomat and heir to the Estée Lauder Company) and Thomas
J. Tisch (investor and Brown University chancellor), want New York’s
socialists out of office. While these billionaires have disliked
DSA’s success in expanding renters’ rights, the organization’s
advocacy for Palestinians has galvanized even more ruling-class
opposition.

DSA officials under fire include state senators Jabari Brisport of
Brooklyn and Kristen Gonzalez of Queens, as well as Assemblymembers
Marcela Mitaynes and Emily Gallagher from Brooklyn. (For full
disclosure, I’m a DSA member and live in Brisport’s district;
I’ve volunteered on his campaigns in the past and plan to do so
again.) While the New York State Legislature does not set foreign
policy, socialist elected officials have been visible at Palestinian
solidarity protests.

A particular object of ire for the pro-Israel billionaires is
Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani of Queens, who wrote the “Not on Our
Dime” legislation, which would bar any charity in New York State
from funding Israeli settlement activity (because the tax-exempt
status of nonprofits makes them effectively government-supported).
Mamdani also joined a group of legislators and activists on hunger
strike
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front of the White House recently, demanding a cease-fire in Gaza.

New York City Council doesn’t make foreign policy any more than the
state government does. But these pro-Netanyahu billionaires understand
that local leaders do help shape the discourse and play a role in
building political movements. They’re also targeting Brooklyn
councilmember Shahana Hanif, who was not endorsed by DSA but has said
that she identifies as a socialist, and who has been outspoken in her
support of a cease-fire in Gaza.

New York’s pro–Benjamin Netanyahu billionaires haven’t succeeded
in their previous efforts to topple DSA-endorsed candidates. They
have, however, backed successful challenges to longtime black
socialist city councilmember Charles Barron and helped drive newcomer
city councilmember Kristin Richardson Jordan, another democratic
socialist not aligned with DSA, out of office.

The lawmakers presently targeted by AIPAC and the pro-Netanyahu
billionaires are indispensable leaders on the Left, and it would be a
travesty to lose any of them as political representatives. In the
past, so much monied opposition might have been the kiss of death to
an American left movement, especially given that most people aren’t
well-informed about foreign policy. But that’s not the case right
now.

The Left is up to the challenge of fighting well-funded opposition
today. These fights require people and commitment, and all these
districts have both — that’s how left-wing candidates get into
office in the first place. DSA and allied groups like the Working
Families Party, especially working with the wider movement for
Palestinian rights and the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have
taken to the streets to demand a cease-fire, have the grassroots power
to fight back and win. Every decent American should join them.

_Liza Featherstone is a columnist for Jacobin, a freelance
journalist, and the author of Selling Women Short: The Landmark
Battle for Workers’ Rights at Wal-Mart._

* socialist politicians
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* electoral campaigns
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* Money in Politics
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* Billionaires
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