In the USA, Israel’s best friend, more and more political activists began to penetrate centers of influence under clear Arab support with the aim of changing America’s pro-Israel policy.
Four months after the terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel and the start of the IDF’s fighting in Gaza, the anti-Israel members of Congress from the Squad (the “squad”) are reporting a record amount of donations that they manage to raise for the elections to the House of Representatives to be held in November, mainly from Arab and Muslim organizations in the US.
It turns out that their harsh criticism of Israel and their demand to end American aid to Israel did them good in the US.
“The Unit” began as a group of four congresswomen from the radical left wing of the Democratic Party who were elected to the House of Representatives in 2018.
The unit is headed by Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Ayanna Presley and the first two Muslim congresswomen in US history – the Somali immigrant Ilhan Omar and the legislator Rashida Tlib, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants.
Since then, it has been joined in Congress by other members who belong to the most critical camp against Israel, and today it also includes, for example, Jamal Bowman from New York, Summer Lee from Pennsylvania and Corey Bush from Missouri.
Since then, they have all been elected to two more terms, during which they often attacked Israel and acted against American aid to the IDF. Omar and Talib were even accused of spreading anti-Semitic plots, and a crisis arose between Israel and the Democratic Party when, with the encouragement of then-President Donald Trump, the government in Jerusalem decided to ban their entry into the country on their way to the Palestinian territories.
To understand the strength of the opposition to Israel, we can give an overview of the American congresswoman Rashida Talib.
Tlib presents a long history of anti-Semitism. Her statements following the Hamas attacks on October 7 were unacceptable – she not only blamed the incident on the victim – but also accused her of committing genocide and continues to defend calls for the ethnic cleansing of Israel from Jews.
In July, for example, Talib voted against a bill that stated that Israel is not a racial or apartheid state and rejected all forms of anti-Semitism and xenophobia. It also falsely accused Israel of bombing a hospital in Gaza during the Iron Swords War – a claim that was later proven wrong, when it turned out that the explosion occurred as a result of a failed rocket launch by Palestinian terrorists. Despite the evidence, Taleb continued her attacks against Israel, including supporting false claims of genocide.
On November 3, she released a video in which she accused US President Joe Biden of supporting the “genocide of the Palestinian people”, and called for a ceasefire without mentioning the removal of Hamas terrorists or the return of the Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza, including the American ones.
She also tweeted on her private account on the X network: “‘From the river to the sea’ – is a rallying cry for freedom, human rights and its coexistence, not death, destruction or hatred,” when in practice, this slogan reflects the battle cry of Hamas for the complete elimination of the Jewish state “.
Exactly one month after the Hamas attack, Talib was criticized for her anti-Semitic statements, both by Republicans and by some Democratic members – and by a majority of 234-188 the House of Representatives decided to impose “censorship” on her, a decision that has no practical meaning but is second only to impeachment from Congress in severity.
The reaction of the pro-Israeli organizations:
Against the background of the aggressive activity of the members of the “Unit” against Israel, pro-Israel organizations in the US, including AIPAC, decided to invest large sums of money in moderate candidates who are willing to run against them in their constituencies in an attempt to cause them to lose, and these progressive legislators see this as a real threat to their political careers.
However, unlike in previous election rounds, in the run-up to this year’s elections, HaHida companies and their members are receiving increasing support from Arab and Muslim organizations in the US, and these are running their own campaigns to increase the chances of this camp maintaining its power in the House of Representatives and representing their voice.
“We recorded a quarter of record donations, due to the fact that the Muslim community felt that it was being erased and that it was being dehumanized in this process,” says Jamal Bowman, a member of the House of Representatives who, as mentioned, also belongs to the progressive camp. Bowman, who is one of the 19 Democratic members of Congress who signed a call for a cease-fire in Gaza, is one of the progressive candidates who will find themselves in the upcoming elections against a rival Democratic candidate backed by AIPAC.
The Muslims are “fighting back”
According to official data, in the 2022 congressional elections, IPAC invested approximately $27 million in campaigns against progressive candidates, and this time it is expected to invest twice as much or more. In the last quarter alone, IPAC was the largest donor to George Latimer, his opponent of Bowman in the Democratic primaries, when she donated more than 600,000 dollars to him, which is more than 40% of the 1.4 million dollars he raised in donations so far.
Bowman, meanwhile, managed to raise more than $730,000 in the last quarter, and according to his campaign, most of that came from Arab and Muslim organizations and private donors. “Muslim and Arab organizations are building an economic, political and social infrastructure to fight back against AIPAC and the organizations that continue to demonize them as Muslims, Arabs and non-whites,” says Bowman, for whom this is a record quarter of donations.
Now pro-Israeli organizations are investing effort in searching for candidates who can challenge the other prominent pro-Palestinian lawmakers there. One such legislator is Rashida Tlib, the first Palestinian member of the US Congress. For now, none of the potential candidates approached by pro-Israel organizations with a request to run against her has accepted the request, but recruitment efforts continue.
For her part, Talib managed to raise about 3.7 million dollars since the beginning of the war in Gaza – a record amount for her. She did this after receiving attacks from all sides for her words against Israel, which included denials of parts of the terrorist attack on October 7 and promoting the call “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, which is considered a call for the elimination of the State of Israel.
In previous rounds of elections held since 2018, Tlieb easily defeated her opponents in the primaries, in part because her constituency includes one of the largest Arab communities in the United States.
