LONDON: The US is home to 51 pro-Israeli lobbying organisations, both large and small. Many of them employ super-PACS.
Money matters in American politics, especially at the time of congressional and presidential elections. In America, money buys votes. Not literally, of course, but through extensive advertising, promoting the favoured candidate and bashing the others. Take a look at previous elections and you’ll find that the candidate who spends the most money usually wins.
This year’s November elections in America will determine not only the next US President, but also the holders of all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 34 of the 100 seats in the Senate. They are already shaping up to be the most expensive elections of all time, with several high-profile billionaires dumping massive amounts of money into the race to support their favourite candidates. Today there are more than 800 dollar billionaires in America and it’s believed that about half of these are successful Jewish businessmen, many of whom strongly support Israel. So it’s not surprising that Jewish advocacy groups contribute billions of dollars in donations during election cycles.
Federal law in the US places limits on the amount any individual can contribute to a candidate’s campaign. To get round this problem, in 2010 a “super PAC” (Political Action Committee) system was approved which allows unlimited amounts of cash to be raised from individuals, corporations, unions and other groups. This money cannot be passed directly to a candidate’s campaign fund, but can be spent on ads which overtly support a candidate or rubbish an opponent. So, a wealthy donor who can give only $6,600 to a federal candidate, can give millions to an outside group backing them. Super PACs are the perfect vehicle for wealthy Americans to influence in a big way the outcomes of elections at local, state or national level.
Take Donald Trump’s super PAC Preserve America, for example, which was formed to support Trump’s re-election bid in 2020. According to Forbes, the Israeli-born physician billionaire Sheldon Adelson contributed $90 million to this super PAC, as well as $120 million to other Republican super PACs. The Jewish independent weekly newspaper, Forward, reported in September 2022 that in return for his contribution, Adelson “demanded that Trump announce the relocation of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on the first day of his presidency”. Trump duly obliged and this controversial move took place on 14 May 2018, the 70th anniversary of Israel’s founding. It came as no surprise that Palestinians were enraged as the move was just before “Nakba” or Day of Catastrophe, when Palestinians commemorate lands they either fled or were evicted from after the creation of the state of Israel. No other major country has followed the US move.
Sheldon Adelson died in January 2021, but his wife Miriam, awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Trump in 2018, is following his example. Together they had spent a fortune supporting the far-right in both America and Israel, and last month Miriam announced that she would revive her Preserve America super PAC, allowing her to channel more than $100 million into the Trump re-election campaign. In a recent profile of America’s fifth richest woman worth $30 billion in New York magazine, Miriam suggested that she might want Trump to push for the annexation of the occupied West Bank if he wins a second term. A hugely controversial move, described in the piece as “unfinished Israeli business from Trump’s presidency”.
Another influential pro-Israeli group is Democratic Majority for Israel, founded in 2019 by Mark Mellman, a veteran American-Jewish political consultant and one of the most influential public opinion gurus in America. Ten years ago, Mellman was chief strategist to centrist Israeli politician Yair Lapid, and was largely responsible for the stunning rise of Yesh Atid (There is a Future), Lapid’s party, now the second largest in the Knesset. DMFI is one of a constellation of pro-Israeli groups in the US that have emerged as major political spenders in recent years, sponsoring and promoting pro-Israeli candidates. Among its board of directors is Archie Gottesman, co-founder of JewBelong, a web-based pro-Israeli platform.
One of the largest and most powerful pro-Israeli organisations in the US is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a lobby group which is currently spending tens of millions of dollars against congressional candidates, primarily Democrats, whom it deems insufficiently supportive of Israel. AIPAC was established shortly after the creation of Israel when, in October 1953, Israeli troops led by future Prime Minister Ariel Sharon killed more than 69 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in the West Bank village of Qibya, in retaliation for the death of an Israeli woman and her two children. There was outrage in America at the savagery of Israeli troops and the Zionist lobby group was formed to manage the political fallout. Over time, AIPAC has shown unwavering support for the ultra-nationalist Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leading the liberal Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, to describe it as “the pro-Netanyahu, anti-Israel lobby”. Such is the influence wielded by AIPAC that its former director, Steve Rosen, once stated that it would be political suicide for a US politician aspiring to be elected to employ anti-Israeli rhetoric. It’s therefore not surprising that in the view of Haaretz, AIPAC “is the entity which defines US foreign policy”.
Two years ago, AIPAC launched a super PAC, United Democracy Project (UDP), with the aim of influencing lawmakers in Washington to continue to supply Israel with the huge amount of military aid. AIPAC was completely transparent about the role of the UDP, commenting later that “when we launched our political action committee, we decided that we would base decisions about political contributions on only one thing: whether a political candidate supports the US-Israel relationship. Not any other issue—just this one”. In April this year, Congress approved $15 billion in emergency security assistance to Israel, in addition to the $3.5 billion, about £500 per citizen, it gets every year. So, in spite of growing criticism of the brutality of Israeli Defence Forces in Gaza, AIPAC’s lobbying is clearly working. It’s also active in getting pro-Israeli candidates selected for Congress in this year’s elections and removing any opponents.
Take the case of Jamaal Bowman, one of Israel’s most outspoken critics in America. Bowman is currently the congressman from New York’s 16th District and until Tuesday was seeking re-election. He is one of the few Democrats to consistently criticize Israel since it began its war on Gaza, accusing its leaders of committing genocide and calling on the Biden White House to “stop all funding” to Israel. As a result, in the build-up to this week’s Primaries he experienced a full-frontal attack by AIPAC in one of the most expensive House primaries in history. AIPAC is said to have spent almost $15 million supporting George Latimer, a vocal advocate for Israel running against Bowman. Mark Mellman’s DMFI super PAC also chipped in more than $1 million to support Latimer, who in Tuesday’s vote defeated Bowman 58% to 42. So now there will be a “pro-Israeli” Democrat congressman representing New York’s 16th District, replacing a critic.
Not all Israeli-Americans agree with AIPAC, however. Its defenestration of Bowman has received heavy criticism from many progressive Jewish organisations. “This was an act of desperation by a pro-war lobby that is at odds with the majority of Americans, including American Jews”, said Eva Borgwardt, national spokesperson for the Jewish advocacy group IfNotNow, which supported Bowman. “You don’t drop $15 million on an election if your positions are popular”, she added. Beth Miller, political director for Jewish Voice for Peace Action, which endorsed Bowman, said “Congressman Bowman’s progressive platform, which includes defending Palestinian rights and halting weapons to Israeli military, is popular among Democratic voters. AIPAC had to spend a truly unprecedented amount of money in order to buy NY-16”.
Since their introduction, the proliferation of super PACS has caused alarm among those devoted to maintaining democracy in America. When super PACS, backed by millions of dollars in special interest money, make deals to influence elected officials, the voices of voters are effectively silenced. It’s long past time, critics argue, to elevate the voices of everyday Americans over special interests and protect the integrity of the democratic process. They have a point. But it was a Supreme Court decision in 2010 that struck down centuries-old campaign finance laws that prohibited corporate electoral expenditure, so any re-evaluation of whether unlimited special interest spending is genuinely compatible with democracy is problematic.
The simple fact is that the US is home to 51 pro-Israeli lobbying organisations, both large and small. Many of them employ super-PACS and will fight tooth and nail to prevent any change to a system that gives them huge influence over their country’s foreign policy towards Israel.
John Dobson is a former British diplomat, who also worked in UK Prime Minister John Major’s office between 1995 and 1998. He is currently a visiting fellow at the University of Plymouth.