Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday singled out AIPAC as a ‘special interest group pushing a wildly unpopular agenda,’ starting a new debate about the pro-Israel organization’s involvement in the party
The debate has been simmering since AIPAC’s United Democracy Project super PAC spent unprecedented sums to unseat two progressive Democrats in their respective primaries over the summer – largely, but not exclusively, bankrolled by donations from Republican megadonors in an election year that was far and away the most expensive in history.
As internal Democratic debate over the party’s ills and its future reached fever pitch in recent days, AIPAC was once again catapulted to the center of the matter.
“Weird to have a whole discourse about ‘special interest groups’ that completely leaves out corporate and industry lobbies – by far the most influential ‘groups’ in the Democratic Party,” Jeremy Slevin, a senior adviser to AIPAC foe Sen. Bernie Sanders, wrote on Sunday.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the most nationally prominent AIPAC critic despite, ironically, being attacked from the left as an apologist for the group earlier this summer, singled out the pro-Israel organization while echoing Slevin’s point. “If people want to talk about members of Congress being overly influenced by a special interest group pushing a wildly unpopular agenda that pushes voters away from Democrats then they should be discussing AIPAC,” she tweeted in response.
They aren’t even blue. They do not care about our political parties. Their interest is as a lobby group to benefit Israel. It’s full name is The American Israel Public Affairs Committee. And the contents match the name on the tin.
They aren’t alone, just to throw a dart and find a couple from the hundreds of organizations as an example, there’s the Japan External Trade Organization and the Irish National Caucus. That there is such a group isn’t alarming. What’s alarming is their level of influence in Democratic Party Politics while obviously preferring Trump and conservative Democrats. Other groups simply lobby for their interest, whereas AIPAC seeks to shape the field of play for our domestic politics, in the favor of Israel.