This week, 14 House Democrats were in Israel on an AIPAC-sponsored trip.
Attendees included Reps. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Pete Aguilar (D-CA), Brad Schneider (D-IL), Josh Riley (D-NY), Tim Kennedy (D-NY), Gil Cisneros (D-CA), Nellie Pou (D-NJ), Laura Gillen (D-NY), Johnny Olszewski (D-MD), Eugene Vindman (D-VA), Luz Rivas (D-CA), Herb Conaway (D-NJ), Wesley Bell (D-MO), and George Latimer (D-NY).
The trip was preceded by a GOP delegation to Israel that was led by House Majority Whip Tom Emmer.
“These visits show the bipartisan, steadfast alliance between the United States and Israel, and of the true shared values between our peoples,” said Israeli President Isaac Herzog in a statement.
That’s certainly not all it shows.
“The debacle of both Republican and Democratic members of Congress traveling to Israel during August recess, when they would otherwise ostensibly be meeting with constituents in their districts, demonstrates the pervasiveness of the Israel lobby’s hold on American politicians,” Quincy Institute research fellow Annelle Sheline told Responsible Statecraft.
14 Democrats isn’t a very impressive number as far as AIPAC trips go.
In 2023, the lobbying group brought 24 House Dems to Israel over recess. In 2019, over 40 attended.
Congress members have faced increasing scrutiny over these visits, and the ongoing genocide has obviously made the optics even worse. Lawmakers don’t want to return home to angry constituents, which is basically inevitable now that most Democratic voters have turned on Israel.
The annual trip comes at an interesting time for The Lobby, as the recent Bernie vote on weapon sales is being viewed as a potential litmus test for the midterms.
While the aforementioned Dems were meeting with Herzog, two AIPAC-backed House members announced that they’d back a ban on offensive weapons to Israel.
Reps. Maxine Dexter (D-OR) and Valerie Foushee (D-NC) got millions from AIPAC’s United Democracy Project (UDP) during their primaries, but now they say they’d back House versions of Sanders’s resolutions.
AIPAC hasn’t addressed these specific shifts, but they did provide a statement to Jewish Insider about the need to remain loyal to Israel.
“If American leaders desire to end the conflict, they should take concrete steps to pressure Hamas to free the hostages and surrender,” said the group. “This is not a moment to abandon an American ally that is battling Hamas terrorists who launched this war with the barbaric attack of October 7.”
In the last newsletter, I wrote about anti-Israel sentiment developing among Republicans.
AIPAC is very aware of this, too. In a fundraising email to supporters, the group attacked Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) for referring to what’s happening in Gaza as a genocide.
“Let’s call this what it is: Marjorie Taylor Greene is the newest member of the anti-Israel Squad,” declared the group. “She may think this earns her praise from the far-left or online radicals — but we see it for what it is: a betrayal of American values and a dangerous distortion of the truth.”
AIPAC will presumably have a lot more email fodder in the coming months, as opposition to Israel’s actions continues to grow.
The Reject AIPAC coalition just put out a statement referencing some of these developments.
“As the Democratic Party looks towards regaining majorities in 2026 and 2028, it is clear that for many of its voters, an AIPAC endorsement will be a political liability,” it concludes. “While there continues to be much work to be done to expel this corrupt lobby from the Democratic Party, our efforts are working. The path forward for Democratic members even as a minority in Congress is clear: Stop arming the Israeli government, reject AIPAC, and return our democracy back to the people.”
Dem presidential hopefuls on Palestine
Last month, Peter Beinart wrote a New York Times Op-Ed about the declining support for Israel among the Democratic base.
Beinart cited recent polling on the issue and Zohran Mamdani’s improbable victory in New York City as proof that Democratic voters had flipped on the issue.
“In 2028, the path is open for a candidate willing to make support for Palestinian rights a symbol of moral consistency, and a refusal to back down from a fight,” he concluded.
While technically true, it’s difficult to envision such a thing actually happening.
Let’s take a quick look at some of the names already being bandied about as potential presidential candidates.
As a part of a July profile in Vogue, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear was asked about Gaza.
“I believe when someone is an ally, when you disagree, you don’t do it publicly or through the media,” was his response.
This is an interesting thing to say about a genocide, and it generated a scathing rebuke in the local Courier Journal.
“The governor’s provocative non-answer, although seemingly benign at first glance, is both a warning, flashing red light and a definitive Rorschach test,” wrote opinion contributor Charlie Cy. “From the party apparatchiks’ perspective, Beshear hit his mark. He dodged an incredibly contentious issue. Kicked the can down the road and bought himself precious time to allow for the grave conditions on the ground in Gaza to shift long before he ever throws his hat into the ring, while also avoiding alienating key demographics and deep-pocketed donors.”
“On the other hand, from the vantage of a critical mass of voters on the left, as well as a select minority of independents, who, there is reason to speculate, played an outsized role in torpedoing Kamala Harris’ presidential bid, over the ongoing American-backed and Israeli-committed genocide in Gaza, Beshear’s response was both politically foolish and morally depraved,” Cy continued.
Next, we turn to former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg , who was asked about Gaza on the “Pod Save America” show and used a whole bunch of words to say absolutely nothing.
“I think that we as Israel’s strongest ally and friend, you put your arm around your friend when there’s something like this going on and talk about what we’re prepared to do together,” said Mayor Pete.
Asked about a potential Palestinian state, Buttigieg’s answer was even more perplexing: “I think that that’s a profound question that arouses a lot of the biggest problems that have happened with Israel’s right to survival in the diplomatic scene.”
Buttigieg faced backlash over his non-answers and was compelled to do some damage control in an interview with Politico.
“I get it,” said Buttigieg, referring to the negative reactions. “It’s important to be clear about something this enormous and this painful. It’s just that it’s so enormous and it’s so painful that sometimes words can fail.”
Buttigieg told the website that he would back Bernie Sanders’ proposed arms embargo and that the U.S. shouldn’t sign another ten-year weapons agreement with Israel.
“For anybody, looking at images of children starving and suffering and dying is horrifying, but I do think it’s different when you’re a parent,” he added. “I think as a parent, you see these awful images of starving children with their ribs showing and automatically, you imagine your own kids.”
Next, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
Usually an unapologetic supporter of Israel, the presidential hopeful now says that blocking arms sales to Israel sends the “right message.”
Pritzker’s remarks came with the standard caveats about Hamas and Israel having “the right to defend itself.”
The blocking of arms sales is also clearly viewed as a way to address the starvation crisis and not a reappraisal of the U.S. relationship with Israel.
In the coming months, we can expect potential nominees to search for middle ground that clearly does not exist.