Does Israel Still Own Congress?

Israel's domination of US politics may not be long for this world.

Oct 14, 2024

Of all the interest groups that gorge themselves at the trough of Washington, DC largesse, the Israel lobby is no stranger to getting its hands dirty in the political arena. For decades, Israeli interest groups and pro-Israeli Jewish organizations have held a vice grip on American foreign policy. Through a combination of conventional lobbying, outright bribery, extortion, and espionage, the Israel First lobby has captured both parties on Capitol Hill.

On any given piece of legislation dealing with Israel or a major conflict that threatens the Jewish state’s strategic position in the Middle East, both parties invariably kowtow to Israel. That is how the cookie has crumbled in DC for several decades. Though things have gotten interesting in the age of the Internet and social media.

In the previous epoch dominated by legacy media, Israel could get away with all manner of cloak-and-dagger operations, geopolitical perfidy, and outright slaughter of its immediate rivals such as the Palestinians. However, the game has gradually changed with the advent of social media.

Social media platforms have fostered the creation of an alternative media ecosystem where independent journalists can readily expose Israeli machinations. Even in the gestational phases of social media’s development, international observers could witness Israel’s brutal treatment of Gaza. As time went by, pro-Palestinian sentiments grew at unprecedented rates across the political spectrum.

A Congressional Revolt Against Israel is Brewing

The rise of libertarian Republicans such as Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and progressive congressional groups such as “The Squad” have added an interesting twist to US foreign policy. While Massie is largely on an island in the still neoconservative/pro-Zionist dominated Republican Party, the Squad has been able to cobble together a growing coalition of progressive Democrats who are willing to question certain aspects of the US’s foreign policy agenda. Namely, they have taken a more pro-Palestinian line that would have been unheard of among Democrats back in the Global War on Terror era.

The initial members of the Squad include Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). Other House members such as Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), Cori Bush (D-MO), Greg Casar (D-TX), Summer Lee (D-PA), and Delia Ramirez (D-IL) subsequently joined the ranks of The Squad.

Omar, a Somali of Islamic confession, and Tlaib, who is of Palestinian extraction, were the two most vocal pro-Palestinian voices of the Squad. Their voices magnified in the wake of the October 7 attacks by Hamas against Israel. Once Israel responded to Hamas with a vicious ethnic cleansing campaign in Gaza, the Squad wasted no time to condemn Israel’s actions.

The Pro-Palestine Left Takes Several Blows

On October 16, 2023, representatives such as Bowman and Bush introduced a resolution calling for "an immediate de-escalation and ceasefire in Israel and occupied Palestine" to stop the bloodshed. The Squad wasn’t alone in pushing for the Biden regime to implement a ceasefire between Hamas and the Israel Defense Forces. Angered by graphic scenes of the Israel-Gaza conflict being disseminated across social media platforms, thousands of university students flooded campus grounds to protest Israel’s domestic and international policies.

As the protests grew stronger, pundits speculated that they would snowball into a political brouhaha akin to the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The highlight of the 1968 convention was then-Mayor Richard Daley unleashing the police to pummel anti-Vietnam War protesters. This live TV humiliation for the Democratic Party played a key role in propelling Richard Nixon to the presidency on a law-and-order platform later that year.

None of the doomsday scenarios came to pass as 76 pro-Palestine protesters were arrested throughout the week of the DNC and the convention proceeded without any major disruption. The ho-hum nature of the convention should not come as a shock given some of the high-profile defeats pro-Palestine members of the Squad were dealt during key primaries this past summer.

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On June 25, 2024, Westchester County Executive George Latimer defeated Bowman by a 54.5% to 45.5% margin. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s United Democracy Project (UDP) super PAC dropped close to $15 million in the race to relieve Bowman of the burden of holding higher office. Bush met a similar fate on August 6, when St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell defeated Bush by a 51% to 46% margin. AIPAC’s UDP tentacle spent $8.5 million to topple Bush.

Thus far in the 2024 election cycle, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has dropped over $100 million on federal elections per FEC data. At the end of August, AIPAC spent over $47 million on federal races so far in 2024. The majority of this money is sent to congressional campaigns of incumbents and other pro-Israel groups, in addition to party organizations and leadership PACs.

The United Democracy Project (UDP), AIPAC’s super PAC, spent roughly $56 million in 2024 thus far, per figures from the FEC. More than $35 million of that spending has been allocated towards independent expenditures for items such as television ads and mailers with the ostensive aim of influencing voters. The rest of this spending has been allocated towards operation costs and donations to other political organizations.

The Progressive Betrayal

Even AOC, who has made a name for herself as a critic of Israel’s policies towards Gaza and the broader Israel lobby, had been impacted by organized Jewry’s pressure. Since being elected in 2018, AOC has branded herself as a progressive firebrand who’s willing to buck the political establishment and shake up DC politics.

But when the moment of truth arrived in the 2024 presidential election cycle, AOC folded like a lawn chair when she proclaimed in a speech at the Democratic National Convention that presidential candidate Kamala Harris was “working tirelessly to secure a cease-fire in Gaza” in her current role as Vice President. Never mind that all evidence shows that a meaningful ceasefire is not being negotiated by the Biden regime. Instead, Israel receives hefty amounts of military aid to its heart’s content.

Whatever anti-establishment luster AOC had, became tarnished after the 2024 DNC. AOC tried to do damage control during an interview with New York City Council Member Chi Ossé. AOC rationalized her support for Harris by stating, “When I process the suffering of Gazans, I think about the women bleeding out in ER rooms in red states...I think about trans kids.”

“…The conclusion I’ve come to is having more people suffer to put on top of the already suffering that’s going on in Gaza…that’s not something that I think I’m comfortable with,” she added. In effect, AOC concedes that Israel First policies are baked into the cake, so people shouldn’t really worry about foreign policy matters. Maybe, just maybe, progressives will get the ruling class to throw them a bone by rewarding them with pro-LGBT sinecures or ethnic grievance policies that advance the modern-Left’s anti-white agenda. A cope if there ever was one.

This is the system’s neatest trick: Dangle the carrot of identity politics to distract and divide the anti-war movement, while allowing the ruling class to continue perpetuating the very policies that are destroying the nation with virtual impunity.

By cosigning Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, AOC has thrown her lot with the neoliberal wing of the Zionist Uniparty that dominates DC politics. There’s no other way of spinning this. Her case represents the typical cycle of a politician who enters the scene as a firebrand but is later assimilated by the ruling class. Effectively, AOC has become part of an oligarchical project that the American populace wants nothing to do with.

The idea that being pro-Israel is a popular position among the American electorate is a figment of the Israel lobby’s fertile imagination. A recent poll found that 61% of Americans are against sending weapons to Israel to assist it in fully realizing its ethnic cleansing campaign in Gaza. However, one of the stark realities of American politics in the 21^st century is that it’s thoroughly oligarchical in nature. The overwhelming democratic preferences of the American populace simply do not translate into concrete public policy.

At the end of the day, US foreign policy is run by and for Jewish oligarchs. The American people’s desire for a humble, non-interventionist foreign policy is routinely ignored once Congress is in session.

Could the American Right Defeat the Israel Lobby?

Not all is doom and gloom on the foreign policy front. As mentioned before, the very presence of an elected official such as Thomas Massie has given advocates of foreign policy restraint a legitimate vehicle to question the U.S.’s toxic relationship with Israel. Since he was elected to Congress in 2012, Massie has been a paragon for non-interventionism. His commitment to bringing back the US to its humble, republican roots has naturally earned Massie many foes, chief among them being AIPAC.

Since October 7, Massie has not yielded to the Israel Lobby and has stood ten-toes-down in his commitment to having the US stay out of foreign conflicts. AIPAC and the consortium of pro-Israel organizations that dominated US foreign policy decision-making in Capitol Hill wanted to make an example of Massie at a time when Israel’s image was taking a major beating on the world stage.

AIPAC unleashed a series of attack ads against Massie in a desperate attempt to discredit his character and paint him as an enemy of the Jewish state. Massie issued a firm response to these ads, saying “AIPAC superPAC just bought $300,000 of ads against me because I am often the lone Republican for freedom of speech, against foreign aid, and opposed to wars in the Middle East.” Despite the onslaught from the Israel First endeavor, Massie cruised to victory against his Republican rivals in the primary on May 21, 2024 when he obtained 75.9% of the vote.

Things got very interesting when pro-gun YouTuber Brandon Herrera forced incumbent Rep. Tony Gonzalez (R-TX) into a runoff race on May 28, 2024. Gonzalez, a Navy veteran, is the embodiment of the Republican status quo of mass migration and never-ending wars promotion. Herrera ran in opposition to Gonzalez on a staunch libertarian Republican platform that was highlighted by his opposition to military aid to Israel.

Like clockwork, the Israel First network scrambled to launch a major volley of attack ads against Herrera. AIPAC and its UDP appendage spent about $1.06 million in attack ads against the social media star. The Republican Jewish Coalition — a reliable booster of slavishly pro-Israel Republicans — jumped into the fray by spending $400,000 in ads to keep Gonzalez in office. Although the Zionist lobby’s anti-Herrera campaign ended in victory, Gonzales took some major body blows along the way as seen by his narrow 50.7% to 49.3% win.

Clearly, certain candidates are making AIPAC sweat. The case of Massie shows that a principled non-interventionist with a robust network of grassroots support can still defeat the pro-Israel lobby. Additionally, the anti-war Right may perhaps be the future of a credible opposition to the Judeo-American Empire’s quixotic military ventures abroad. Unlike their counterparts in the progressive Left, anti-war Rightists don’t have poison pill positions on a host of cultural and racial issues — anti-white hate, pro-LGBT, etc., — that turn off vast swathes of Americans who would otherwise be receptive to a less interventionist foreign policy.

Are Israel’s Days Numbered?

One could argue that AIPAC’s victories in some of the aforementioned primary races are pyrrhic at best. They’re not only forced to expend great resources to maintain and elect pro-Zionist elected officials, AIPAC is also forced to show its hand. The Israel lobby and its cohorts in organized Jewry have long operated in the shadows or have at least maintained a small, visible footprint in how they move in the political scene. However, AIPAC is now going fully hands on and directly intervening in races, leaving everything hanging out for the public to see.

As the world looks in horror at the worst racial genocide of the 21st century, more people have seen through the illusion of Empire Judaica. While the Israel lobby maintains a vice grip over the two dominant parties in DC, this power is not necessarily guaranteed to last in perpetuity. It’s no secret that the US is in a decadent phase of its imperial history — a prospect that does not augur well for Israel due to its dependence on US hegemony to be a relevant player in the Middle East.

The rise of a multipolar world where US influence is increasingly diminishing abroad, younger generations of Americans no longer as sympathetic to Israel, and Israel’s own domestic issues such as religious polarization and the rise of a large, welfare-dependent ultra-Orthodox segment of its population, puts the very viability of a Jewish state in question as its 2048 centennial approaches.

Nothing is set in stone in politics. While Israeli primacy in DC remains relatively strong, the post-October 7 world may end up being irreversibly hostile for Israel, which is a net positive for the US.

No functional polity should ever be beholden to the foreign policy whims of an erratic, rogue state such as Israel.

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