Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) has sharply criticized the U.S.’s most prominent pro-Israel lobbying group over its support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, likening it to the notorious far right National Rifle Association (NRA) as the group launches well-funded attacks on progressive lawmakers who support Palestinian rights.
This week, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, posted a series of attacks on progressive lawmakers who have called for a ceasefire in Gaza, particularly highlighting sexual assault reportedly committed by Hamas fighters in their October 7 attack. Many of the posts implicate that supporting a ceasefire is akin to denying the sexual violence and attacking sexual assault survivors, ignoring the many reports of sexual violence against Palestinians by Israeli soldiers who are carrying out genocide in Gaza, as recently reported by UN officials.
“It is appalling that AIPAC is targeting women members of Congress who have survived sexual assault with this horrific rhetoric,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a post on social media on Wednesday.
AIPAC has launched a major campaign blitz against progressive lawmakers this year amid Israel’s massacre, intensifying its longtime campaign against supporters of Palestinian rights in Congress. The lobbying group is prolific in its support of candidates who are deemed by the group to be insufficiently pro-Israel, and has given tens of millions of dollars to campaigns just in recent years in attempts to rid Congress of anyone other than the most vehement Zionists, boosting even the most fascist, extremist Republicans.
“Each and every day, their role in US politics becomes a greater scandal,” Ocasio-Cortez continued. “They are the NRA of foreign policy. Of course they don’t want a ceasefire.”
The NRA is also infamous for its support of the far right, and has been an extremely powerful force over the past decades in terms of its lobbying power. For decades, it has successfully lobbied against and defeated laws aimed at addressing gun violence and even stifled research that could have provided evidence of the gun violence epidemic that it denies the existence of. This epidemic is having particularly harsh effects on children, and has become the top cause of death for children in the U.S.
The pro-Israel lobby has a similarly powerful grip over Congress, with the vast majority of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in favor of sending Israel a steady stream of weapons and military assistance without restrictions, even as humanitarian groups and other world leaders repeatedly warn that Israel is committing an unfathomable amount of human rights violations in Gaza, including killing over 12,000 children just since October.
“As a survivor of rape, AIPAC’s tactic of exploiting rape is outright vile and appalling,” said Rep. Cori Bush (D-Missouri) on Thursday, responding to a post by AIPAC accusing progressives of sweeping aside sexual violence. “Their playbook relies on bullying, lying, harassing, belittling & intimidation to try to manipulate the public and force those calling for a ceasefire into submission. It won’t stop us.”
Bush — along with lawmakers like Representatives Jamaal Bowman (D-New York), Summer Lee (D-Pennsylvania), Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota), Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan), and more — has been facing primary challenges or attacks with AIPAC backing over her support of Palestinian rights.
In fact, the Democrat challenging Bush dropped out of a Senate race to oust far right Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) in order to challenge Bush over her anti-Zionist stances, while AIPAC has reportedly offered at least two Michigan Democratic Senate candidates $20 million to drop out of their races to primary Tlaib.
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