On Tuesday night, Representative Cori Bush lost in a Democratic primary election to challenger Wesley Bell, whose election campaign was overwhelmingly financed by pro-Israel groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac). According the New York Times, the spending by pro-Israel groups “transformed the race into one of the most expensive House primaries in history”. While Bush, an outspoken opponent of Israel’s crimes against Palestinians, is on her way out of Congress because of Aipac’s big spending, the victory for Israel donors is the latest sign of their cause’s decline in the United States and especially in the Democratic party.
How could it be that such a powerful flex by pro-Israel donors is a reflection of a weakening cause? It’s simple: it is because such power flexes were never needed before. Now, it has become routine. Recently, Aipac and company spent huge sums to defeat Jamal Bowman in a primary as well. They made similar efforts against Representative Summer Lee last time, though she was able to survive the onslaught.
In the immediate short term, it seems like a reflection of power, but anyone who has been following the politics around this issue in the United States for years knows this is anything but. Pro-Israel interest groups never had to overtly and heavily interject themselves into electoral politics in such a way previously precisely because their cause enjoy a great degree of cultural hegemony. In the US, politicians kissed babies, petted dogs, loved baseball and unequivocally supported Israel. That last part isn’t quite what it used to be. The consensus around supporting Israel, especially in the Democratic party, has collapsed.
Over the last two decades, we have seen quite a remarkable shift in opinion on this issue among Democrats in particular. Numerous public opinion polls all provide evidence of the same trend. Democrats especially, but also independents, have grown less sympathetic to Israel over time. A Pew poll from March 2023 found that for the first time, Democrats had more sympathy for Palestinians than Israelis. Importantly, if you look at the charts, the beginning of a clear and steady nose dive that would continue for the next decade is between 2014 and 2015. What happened then? Israel’s horrific month-and-a-half-long war on Gaza which destroyed swaths of civilian infrastructure and killed about 1,500 civilians, most of whom were women and children, is what happened. The barbarity displayed by the Israeli military and the havoc wreaked on Gaza led many Americans to turn away in dismay and ask why their government continues to fund the Israeli military.
But as horrific as Israel’s war on Gaza in 2014 was and as clear a turning point in the polls as it turned out to be, its impact will probably pale in comparison with the impact of the genocidal war Israel has been carrying out in Gaza for the last 10 months. This campaign of mass atrocities has gone on for nearly seven times as long as the war in 2014 and killed a far, far greater number of Palestinians in the process with some estimates of more than 186,000 dead. Indeed, polls have already shown that most Democrats believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. That is the consensus that is increasingly shared across the world with dozens of states, including Brazil, Spain, Slovenia, Mexico and many more joining South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the international court of justice.
Not only is this war so much more destructive than that of 2014, but it has consequently meant that far more imagery of the sadism of Israeli troops committing war crimes in Gaza, often posted by the troops themselves, have riffled around the world on TikTok, Instagram and other social media sites, giving people everywhere a chance to bear witness to their brutality. We saw what the decade after 2014 looked like for public opinion on Israel – can you imagine what the next decade will look like after these horrors? Aipac can, and that is precisely why they are terrified. They are attempting to plug a hole in the proverbial dyke with millions in campaign donations, but their problem isn’t akin to a leak, it is a rising tide of anger and disgust over Israeli crimes that will shape a generation to come.
The support for Israel once enjoyed in the US, when people took it to be as normal as the sun rising every day, is gone. Maintaining what support is left will require persuasion – which isn’t easy given they are trying to persuade audiences to support war crimes – and increasingly coercion. That era of coercion and repression is what we are quickly transitioning to and will shape the years to come, but that too comes with reputational costs for pro-Israel forces and will eventually collapse as well. When it does, voices like Cori Bush’s will be commonplace in our political class and she will be remembered for valiantly standing up for the rights of Palestinians when too many still did not have the political courage to do so.
Yousef Munayyer is head of the Palestine/Israel program at the Arab Center Washington DC
