The Crime versus the Blunder: AIPAC's Insurrectionist Endorsements

A few months ago, AIPAC announced it was breaking with its longstanding tradition to directly endorse and fundraise on behalf of political candidates. Several more liberal Jewish groups immediately pressed AIPAC to refuse to endorse any candidate who supported the January 6 insurrection by trying to prevent certification of Joe Biden as President. AIPAC demurred, and now we know why: its initial endorsement list contains dozens of GOP insurrectionists. Among the 61 endorsed Republicans (alongside 59 Democrats) are such luminaries as Jim Jordan(!!!), Nicole Malliotakis, and Tom Emmer. Shared values!

This decision is so obviously disgraceful that one could almost overlook how stupid it is too. But in the annals of "obvious 'pro-Israel' lobbying own-goals" this may well surpass anything DMFI has done, and that's saying something. What's so amazing about AIPAC's blunder here is that it's not only indefensible on the merits, but even the second-order apologias for why "even if this wasn't the wisest move they were in a difficult position" don't work either.

Most obviously: AIPAC did not need to do this. Any observer (read: this observer) could have told them that this election cycle was an especially fraught time to initiate overtly wading into partisan politics. It'd be one thing if these candidates were ones it had been supporting for years and was now being asked to explicitly withdraw support previously extended. They still should have done it -- friends don't stay friends with insurrectionists -- but at least that'd be an actual dilemma. But here AIPAC made the affirmative choice to initiate this support right now; voluntarily and consciously jumping into a political thicket. It could have avoided all of this merely by sticking with its longstanding practice of not endorsing candidates. It chose not to, knowing this was the consequence.

Other attempted excuses that try to move AIPAC out of "bone-headed" into merely "indefensible" fare no better. Let's run through a few:

"AIPAC has to maintain relationships with both parties."

First of all, if AIPAC cannot find enough Republicans to endorse without wading into insurrectionist territory, that seems like it should be a GOP problem, not an AIPAC problem. But in principle, I agree that AIPAC cannot jettison either party outright. In particular, it makes sense to put both parties' leaders -- Pelosi and McCarthy -- on the list; if that was all that was happening here, I could at least understand the logic notwithstanding McCarthy's insurrectionist ballot.

But this logic cannot explain why, say, Jim Jordan (again -- !!!!) makes the list. Jim Jordan isn't on the foreign affairs committee, he's not known as a crucial player in international relations, he's not some necessary bigwig you have to cultivate if you're going to succeed in pro-Israel lobbying. When it comes to Israel, Jordan is basically indistinguishable from the next marginal Republican who is not directly implicated in trying to overthrow the government. He brings nothing to the table other than being a frothing right-wing extremist and budding authoritarian, and so every observer who sees his name on AIPAC's list will assume that he's on there because AIPAC wants to curry favor with a frothing right-wing extremist and budding authoritarian.

If you're doing the "keep relationships with both parties" thing, put down the congressional leaders plus a dozen or so uncontroversial figures from both parties to keep up a balance. AIPAC didn't make that choice -- they deliberately put down some of the most extreme and inflammatory figures, for no clear political gain.

"AIPAC is a single issue lobby -- the only criteria for inclusion is a politician's Israel policy."

This was AIPAC spokesman Marshall Wittman's argument, and it's bull. To begin, if you're going to tie support for Israel to "shared values", then you can't say its irrelevant whether a given politician rejects the principle of democratically-elected governance. If you can't be trusted to defend democracy in America, you certainly aren't going to do it in Israel.

But moreover, particularly on the Republican side there's no Israel policy thread that distinguishes the GOP politicians who are on the endorsement list from those who aren't. I defy anyone to tell me how Elise Stefanik's Israel views differ at all from Lauren Boebert's. The reason the latter isn't on AIPAC's list has nothing to do with her not having the "right" views on Israel (from AIPAC's vantage anyway), it's because she's a loon and AIPAC doesn't want to be associated with her. But once it makes that judgment, it's entirely reasonable to hold them accountable for their cheerful association with the insurrectionist caucus. AIPAC is choosing to tie itself to GOP insurrectionists; it could have very easily chosen not to, and absolutely deserves to take all the hell in the world as a consequence of its indefensible and eminently avoidable choice.

"Sometimes, you have to support the lesser-of-two-evils, and support unideal figures to prevent someone with overtly anti-Israel from occupying these seats."

Again, the logic is fine, but the application to AIPAC's actual conduct is nonexistent. Problem #1: The vast majority of these congresspersons are not running in competitive seats. I have no idea who Jim Jordan's Democratic opponent is, much less what his or her Israel views are, but (regrettably) said opponent stands no chance of dislodging Rep. Jordan. And as for competitive races, I guess I can understand why AIPAC felt compelled to endorse Nicole Malliotakis, notwithstanding her insurrection vote, if the alternative would be known anti-Israel zealot *checks notes* Max Rose. Seriously -- that endorsement might be the biggest slap in the face of all: Rose is a pro-Israel darling, exactly the sort of Democrat AIPAC claims to want to foster, and AIPAC won't even support him (hell, won't even stay neutral) in his race against a woman who tried to overturn the 2020 election? Screw you!

The most likely place where we're liable to see a contested race where one candidate has (from AIPAC's vantage) a much worse Israel record than their competitor is in Democratic primaries where a strong pro-Israel Democrat might face a challenge from their left that AIPAC would want to fend off (the reason this doesn't apply to Republican primaries is that I doubt there is any rightwing position on Israel -- at least that which nominally drapes itself as "pro-Israel" -- that is too extreme for AIPAC to accept. But remember, they support a two-state solution!). This probably explains the Haley Stevens endorsement in her intra-party match against Andy Levin -- an endorsement which I have no facial problem with even if the rhetoric could stand to be tamped down a notch. But it's far from clear that AIPAC's endorsement is even beneficial these days in a Democratic primary, and associating AIPAC with GOP insurrectionists makes the brand even more toxic. If the top priority is keeping pro-Israel Democrats secure against flanking attacks, the main effect of AIPAC's endorsement list is to kneecap their own credibility.

What was it De Talleyrand famously said? "It's worse than a crime, it's a blunder." AIPAC's decision to endorse politicians who are barely a year removed from trying to overturn American democracy is a grave crime against political decency. But its criminality is almost exceeded by its sheer stupidity. AIPAC did not have to endorse candidates in 2022; indeed, 2022 seems like the absolute worst time for an organization that seeks to straddle partisan divides to initiate wading into direct political campaigning. And once it made that decision, it did not have to endorse GOP insurrectionists -- it very easily could have limited itself to at least less controversial figures on both sides of the aisle and stayed out of the fray. Instead, for no discernible reason, it made the conscious choice to single out some of the most overtly extreme and toxic figures in American politics and a wrap them in a big ol' bear hug. The result is already proving catastrophic for AIPAC's brand. And if AIPAC ever did care about shoring up support for Israel among Democratic politics, it's made that task far harder to accomplish as well.

Nice work, guys.

How To Avoid the Trap of the House Antisemitism Resolution

Here's a truncated timeline of certain events today:

1. I read story about the House considering introducing a resolution on antisemitism, "in response" to certain comments by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D). The story indicated that the resolution came about in part due to a letter from Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL.
2. I called my contact at a major American Jewish organization and left a somewhat frank voicemail suggesting that, unless the House Resolution made crystal-clear that it was not solely addressing Omar but equally targeted antisemitic remarks emanating from Republican representatives -- most notably, the Soros-style "wealthy Jewish financiers 'own' us and are pulling the strings behind the scenes" conspiracy theories -- there would a massive backlash and it would be entirely deserved.
3. Draft text of the resolution was released (it does not mention Omar, or any other elected official, by name).
4. The official at the aforementioned Jewish org called me back and I had the opportunity to provide a bit more color to my suggestions regarding how they should handle this situation.
5. I read a statement from Bend the Arc arguing that the House Resolution is a "trap", in that it functions to single out Omar without any sort of concurrent condemnation of antisemitism from elected Republicans like Jim Hagedorn, Kevin McCarthy, and Jim Jordan.

So, as the day closes, here's my question: How do we avoid the trap? How do we tackle antisemitism in a way that does not give succor to the false narrative that the problem of antisemitism in America is solely represented by Ilhan Omar, and not the vicious antisemitic conspiracy mongering flying through the political right?

The thing is, believe or not -- lots of us fully see the trap. That includes the mainline Jewish organizations. They're frustrated by what seems like the endless foot-in-mouth/apology/foot-back-in-mouth cycle Omar is going through, but they're also frustrated at the expectation that the primary subject of their counter-antisemitism energy should be Ilhan Omar. There are many, many other antisemitic things in the world, and they understand how bad a look it is that Omar seems to be catching the brunt of all the attention. 

We should be casting scrutiny on the Soros-style antisemitic conspiracy theories that run riot through the GOP at its highest levels. When we condemn antisemitism, that should be front and center in our attentions. The fact that it isn't represents a real problem, and Omar and her backers have a legitimate grievance here. There's a reason why I opened my column on Omar by talking about Jim Hagedorn, and there's a reason why nonetheless nobody seems interested in having me write a column or giving a quote on Jim Hagedorn. The "bad look" is, at least in part, a product of a bad reality.

But how do you change that reality?

The text of the House Resolution doesn't single out Omar. It doesn't single out anyone; it names no names. Yet nonetheless, there is no question that it is perceived as a swipe (albeit a sub silentio swipe) at Omar, specifically. Nobody is reading this resolution and saying "wow, the House Democratic leadership is really turning the screws on Jim Jordan!"

Is that reading unfair? The text of the resolution is a bit meandering, but on the whole it focuses on the type of antisemitism -- allegations of "dual loyalty" -- that Omar is alleged to have engaged in. There is no significant mention of Soros-style conspiracy theories; these are at best very briefly alluded to and then dropped. In context, I can't say that readers are unfair in viewing the resolution as targeting Omar. And then we're right back to where we started: a very legitimate grievance Omar and her backers have that alleged antisemitism doesn't seem to matter unless it's being done by people who look like her, in a political climate where there is very real and very dangerous antisemitism that is an exceptionally live part of mainstream conservative discourse.

So the first step -- an obvious step, a step I can't believe I have to suggest because it's should have been blindingly self-evident step -- to avoiding the trap is that the resolution should dedicate equal time to the type of antisemitism that we see on the mainstream political right: conspiracy theories about wealthy Jewish financiers pulling the strings on political and social campaigns, "owning" certain politicians or slyly controlling American society from the shadows. Such antisemitism has a deep historical pedigree in America -- dating at least to Henry Ford, and almost certainly beyond that -- and there is a straight-line between it and such atrocities at the Tree of Life massacre. 

Or put differently, and with apologies to Max Rose, the House shouldn't write a chickenshit antisemitism resolution. The first step to changing the bad optics of the resolution is to change its bad reality, and that makes holding the active forms of conservative antisemitism accountable too.

Would that be enough? It's hard to say. We've gotten very keyed into a narrative whereby if we're talking about antisemitism in American politics, we're talking about Ilhan Omar, and the media hates giving up a perfectly good narrative without a fight. If a few paragraphs about that sort of antisemitism were inserted into the resolution, it still likely wouldn't be seen as an equivalent swipe at GOP antisemitism, even if that was the intent, and even if that was the fairest reading of the resolution. Something has to be done to break the narrative. Somebody has to stop playing the part the narrative insists that they play.

And so my suggestion to the Jewish organization went. I suggested that, if they really wanted to avoid the trap -- if they really were as tired as they said they were about being perceived as one side of a "the Jews vs. Omar" controversy -- they needed to take a bold step:

They needed to insist -- explicitly, and publicly -- that they will not back the House Resolution unless it clearly condemned the Soros-style antisemitic conspiracy-mongering which is the other prominent antisemitic trope currently raging through our polity. They needed to come out and say that an resolution purporting to fight antisemitism is not acceptable unless it speaks out clearly and decisively against that form of antisemitism too.

That'd be a man-bites-dog story. That'd be a case of someone not playing their role. That might actually break the narrative of "the Jews vs. Omar." Might. I'm not confident, because fundamentally I don't believe that the behavior of Jewish groups exerts much influence on how the non-Jewish pres talks about Jews.

Still, as an added bonus, one thing it almost certainly would do is get a change in the resolution text. One has to think that the Democratic leadership thinks that it is satisfying the mainstream Jewish community with this resolution; its concern is how it will be received on its left flank. If it doesn't even have the backing of mainline Jewish groups, and the reason it doesn't have such backing is because the resolution needs to be adjusted to satisfy the concern that it is too soft on the right, then all the vectors of political pressure are in accord, and the resolution will change in a positive direction.

The fact is, it is a trap to agree to premise that the fight against antisemitism in America boils down to a fight against Ilhan Omar. It is a trap stemming from the right -- which wishes to pretend as if their own antisemitism isn't real and doesn't matter; and it is equally a trap emanating from the left -- which wishes to frame the fight against antisemitism as nothing more than the fight to silence politicians like Ilhan Omar. The right wants us to believe that if the House condemns antisemitism in America, they are condemning nobody but Ilhan Omar. And the left wants us to believe the exact same thing.

We need to avoid that trap. I can't make it happen. But if the big Jewish organizations have the guts to do what is necessary and step out from their default roles -- we may just manage to avoid it.