As Jews on the left, we are in solidarity with Representative Ilhan Omar and her statements regarding the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) influence over US lawmakers and foreign policy.

Israel is often referred to as the United States’s primary ally in the Middle East, as it plays a central role in maintaining US military and economic hegemony over the region. While AIPAC is not the main reason for the US’s “special relationship” with Israel, it provides lawmakers with political cover, model legislation, talking points, and donations from its supporters to ensure this relationship continues. AIPAC is not an exclusively Jewish lobby, hosting a growing Evangelical Christian membership as American Jewish support for its policies wanes. There is nothing antisemitic about pointing out AIPAC’s influence. Indeed, Rep. Omar’s comments are arguably an understatement, considering the scale of AIPAC’s role in promoting Israeli apartheid and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

In 2018 alone, AIPAC spent$3.5 million onlobbying the federal government for pro-Israel policies, more than any other pro-Israel group. Yet even this number doesn’t account for the AIPAC-affiliated money being donated to politicians’ campaigns. Pro-Israel individuals and interests contributed almost $15 million to political campaigns in 2018 and over $143 million since 1990. Much of this spending was coordinated by AIPAC members. Although AIPAC does not contribute directly to campaigns, it frequently boasts about the influence its massive informal donor network has over Congress. Former AIPAC Executive Director Thomas Dine estimated that in the 1980s and ‘90s, “contributions from AIPAC members often constituted roughly 10 to 15% of a typical congressional campaign budget.” There is no reason to believe that those already huge percentages haven’t remained steady, or grown even higher today.

AIPAC is also actively mainstreaming anti-Muslim hate: The AIPAC Policy Conference has invited deeply Islamophobic speakers such as Steven Emerson, head of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, and supporters of indigenous genocide, torture, and militaristic foreign policy, including Elliot Abrams, Tom Cotton, and John Bolton.

To be clear, AIPAC’s influence is not the only reason the United States supports these policies. AIPAC is only one piece of a larger imperialist puzzle, in which Israel joins the ranks of other Western powers in exchange for supposed safety and inclusion. While distinct from antisemitism, imprecision surrounding this issue allows room for antisemitic co-option and leaves capital and empire off the hook. Ultimately, AIPAC exists to complement the US’s long-term project for imperialist domination over the Global South, not the other way around.

But all this is not the fault of a single congresswoman’s failure to fully contextualize her tweet within a critique of Western imperialism. If we want a truly robust analysis of Zionism, it’s up to us on the left to build a truly anti-imperialist movement — with or without participation from members of Congress. Simultaneously, we must oppose the racist, Islamophobic, and misogynistic silencing of Black and Muslim women who dare point out truths about Israel, because doing so is a crucial component of building that movement. Not only are Rep. Omar’s critics racist, they distract from the rising tide of global fascism.

As American Jewish socialists, we are disgusted that the United States employs Israel to further its imperial goals, in the form of billions of dollars per year in guaranteed military contracts and diplomatic support for maintaining the occupation of Palestinian land. This is felt not only abroad but domestically, as tactics deployed by both the Israeli military and the US military abroad are in turn used against against Black and Brown Jews and non-Jews in the US.

It is because of its relationship to Western imperialism that AIPAC is alienating Jewish Americans like us. Most American Jews oppose its policy prescriptions, including Israel’s settlement expansion and belligerence against its neighbors. This is particularly true among young people. Polls show that among American Jewish college students, just 42% believe Israel wants peace while only 31% believe Israel is a democracy. AIPAC's policy prescriptions are not in line with Jewish American opinion, and to assume that they are is, itself, antisemitic.

Though antisemitism can sometimes express itself through criticism of Israel, principled critiques and anti-Zionism itself are in no way inherently antisemitic. Though AIPAC and other players work hard to claim total representation of the Jewish people, they do not speak for American Jews and are certainly not representative of the Jewish working class.

As Jews and as socialists, we must condemn the conflation of Jews and Israel as part of our broader struggle against antisemitism and all forms of oppression, including the oppression of Palestinians. It stands in the way of building working class solidarity and the mass socialist movement we need to defeat the forces of capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy, which oppress and exploit us all. #IStandWithIlhan against AIPAC and with working class Muslim and Jewish people around the world.

Signed,

Jewish Solidarity Caucus

Michael Robin, Jewish Solidarity Caucus / DSA

Isaac Kirk-Davidoff, JSC-NYC, NBK DSA

Aaron Marks, Metro DC DSA

Max Socol

David Golbitz

Zachary Rane

Asher Wycoff

Jonathan Brodsky

Eli Baumann

Matthew Berner

Greg Afinogeno, Metro DC DSA

Naftali Ehrenkranz, JSC/Chicago DSA

H Pershing

Zach Popkin-Hall

Ari Shinsky

Anne Kohut

Jason Kurtz

Michelle Farber, International Socialist Organization

Talia E.

Harley French

Ruth Geye

Ethan Ackelsberg, International Socialist Organization

Geneviève Nevin, Independent Jewish Voices Canada

Eli Lichtenstein

Joshua Gold

Daniel Derozier, Houston DSA

Craig Spivack, North New Jersey Democratic Socialists of America

Allie Howard, JSC

Eli Valley

Robert S. Paul

Katie Unger

Adam Nuchtern

Rebecca Zweig

Matt Garczynski

Ben Doernberg

Dan Hurowitz

Richard Frankel, Eugene DSA

Cameron M, I.W.W

Nathan Tabak l

Michael E, International Socialist Organization

Nathan Tankus

Sivan Silver-Swartz, DSA-LA, Jewish Solidarity Caucus

Mindy Isser

Sara Rubinstein

Sarah Golden

Benjamin Winick

Molly Officer

Matthew Simon

Nadav Pais-Greenapple

Melisa Crosby, Portland DSA

Sam Forman, DSA-LA

Andrew Shapiro

Aron Egelko

Eric Fink, NC Piedmont DSA & Jewish Solidarity Caucus

Matthew Dorfman

Elissa Laitin, Metro DC DSA

Lane Silberstein

Daniel H

Jesse Einhorn, IfNotNow

Paige Kreisman, Portland DSA

Ken Rosenberg

Jay Schaffner, Moderator, Portside (for identification only)

Elana Dahlager

Noah Barer

Jonathan Holtzman

Jared Margulies, University of Sheffield

Adam Baltner

Adin Eichler

David L. Mandel , DSA, Jewish Voice for Peace, elected member of the California Democratic Party Central Committee

Laura Tanenbaum, DSA NYC/JVP NYC

Matan Kaminer

James Schneider

Caleb De Jong, Queens DSA

Dan Boscov-Ellen, DSA

Ben H, Democratic Socialists of America

Amy Cooper, DSA

Eric Thompson, Rochester DSA

Isaac Salander

David Makofsky, DSA/JVP

Grace Wilson

Kathryn Silverstein, Jewish Voice for Peace, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice

Kelsey Goldberg, DSA-LA

Andy Pressman

Sonya Karabel

Daniel Sieradski, Jewish Solidarity Caucus

Jake Krakovsky

Julian Modugno

Alon Lapid

Katherine Herman, NYC DSA

Nicolas Allen

Martha Dzhenganin

Sarah Seidman

Tevye Cowan

Ben Grossman

Betsey Brada

Melissa F Weiner, College of the Holy Cross

Benjamin Balthaser, DSA-Chicago

Sarah Edelstein

Jessica Levine, Jewish Solidarity Caucus & chaverut shabbat collective

Papagena Robbins

Simon Sankoff

Liza, DSA Silicion Valley

Alexander Levin-Epstein

Bradford A Barker

Yvette Kleinbock

Ben Goldsmith, Chicago DSA

Hadas Their, ISO

Alon Stotter, Chicago DSA

Eli Barrows, Chicago DSA

Jacob Kramer, Boston DSA

Alec Collins

Martabel Wasserman, DSA Santa Cruz

Ben Udashen, Seattle DSA

Ali Soleimani, UC Davis

Adam Schragin, Austin DSA

Arielle Cohen, Socialist Majority Caucus DSA & Pittsburgh IfNotNow

Senator Julia Salazar, NYC-DSA

Will Luckman, NYC-DSA

William Spieler, Metro DC DSA

Suzanne Rose

Aaron Warner, DSA-LA, Jewish Solidarity Caucus

Justin Cancilla Herschel, DSA Los Angeles

Marissa Brostoff, Central Brooklyn DSA

David Poms

Max Gelula, Chicago DSA

Matthew G. Wells

To sign onto this statement, follow the linked form.