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Friends,

Recently, AIPAC launched a wave of negative ads targeting former
Congressman Tom Malinowski in a congressional primary race in New Jersey. 

AIPAC’s super PAC, the United Democracy Project, has so far committed over
$800,000 – with far more almost certainly coming – to attacking Malinowski
for voting for a 2019 bipartisan funding bill that included immigration
enforcement funding. 

Given AIPAC’s failure to speak out in opposition to ICE’s shocking
deployment, brutal tactics and deadly violence – or to the Trump
administration’s broader assault on democratic norms – its use of this
issue for a political attack from the left is the height of political
hypocrisy.

The move, though, isn’t a surprise. It continues a five-year pattern of
deploying vast financial resources – primarily raised from Republican
donors – to intimidate, punish or defeat Democrats AIPAC deems
insufficiently pro-Israel. 

With tens of millions of dollars in the bank, the implicit threat to
sitting members of Congress and candidates alike is hard to ignore.

AIPAC’s ads run in the name of “the United Democracy Project” because they
know that running ads in its own name would backfire in a Democratic
primary.

AIPAC could spend its political dollars in other ways – for instance,
supporting candidates pushing for the implementation of the 20-point
ceasefire plan in Gaza or positively promoting its mission of
strengthening the US-Israel relationship itself.

It could even – if it really wanted to reflect American Jewish opinion at
this critical moment – use its capital to support those defending American
democracy from the existential attacks it faces.

What it is doing instead – dumping massive sums into competitive
Democratic primaries to take down thoughtful pro-Israel Democrats who
don’t want to give a blank check to Bibi Netanyahu – is not the way to
build durable bipartisan support for Israel in the United States.

It in fact weakens bipartisan support, alienates the next generation –
Jewish and non-Jewish alike – and ties Israel’s fate to the most corrosive
elements of American politics.

It also risks generating anger – toward Israel, toward Israel’s friends,
and, more dangerously, toward the Jewish community broadly – something all
of us who care about Israel’s future should find alarming.

This is especially dangerous at a time when far-right forces in both
Israel and the United States are eroding democratic norms, minority
protections and the rule of law. 

Israel, American democracy and the American Jewish community all deserve
better.

Yours, 

Jeremy Ben-Ami
President, J Street

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J Street is the political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-democracy
Americans who want Israel to be secure, democratic and the national home of the
Jewish people. Working in American politics and the Jewish community, we
advocate policies that advance shared US and Israeli interests as well as Jewish
and democratic values, leading to a two-state solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.



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