Anti-Israel politicans are obsessed with AIPAC — – Latest News
More than any political cycle in reminiscence, the 2026 main marketing campaign season has been marked by frequent, and sometimes hysterical, condemnations of the affect of the so-called “Israel lobby.”
After the conspiratorial gadfly Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) misplaced his Republican main in May, he quipped concerning the Trump-endorsed former Navy SEAL officer who defeated him: “I would have come out sooner, but I had to call my opponent and concede, and it took a while to find Ed Gallrein in Tel Aviv.”
Way to query the patriotism of a embellished SEAL Team Six veteran, Tom. Keep it stylish!
On the Democratic facet, the bogeyman du jour has been the America Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Some profitable Democratic candidates, equivalent to Abdul El-Sayed in Arab-heavy Michigan, rode anti-AIPAC fervor to victory.
And some dropping candidates, such because the comically corrupt Cori Bush in St. Louis, blamed AIPAC for his or her rejection.
In her concession speech, Bush vowed to dismantle AIPAC’s “kingdom.”
Your loss couldn’t presumably be since you defrauded two federal aid packages during COVID-19, may it, Cori?
These (literal) losers are barking up the improper tree.
Massie had turn out to be a thorn in President Donald Trump’s facet, often voting towards the president on home priorities.
That, not any exterior pro-Israel spending, is why Massie went down in flames.
For Democrats, El-Sayed’s success alone belies the favored mythology of AIPAC as a juggernaut — one thing everybody ought to have intuited 11 years in the past, when the foyer didn’t stop former President Barack Obama’s horrible Iran nuclear deal.
Even more to the purpose: AIPAC is a group of activist Americans who foyer and deploy money for an problem they care about.
Fact is, AIPAC is no totally different than the NRA or the NAACP.
Sore loser hysterics however, there’s reality to the allegation of meddlesome overseas interference in American politics.
But that interference isn’t coming from Israel.
It’s coming from terror-tied Islamic teams and Islamic governments.
El-Sayed’s rich father-in-law, Jukaku Tayeb, contributed $200,000 to a tremendous PAC backing his son-in-law.
This is no story of harmless household kumbaya: Tayeb is a founding committee member of the Islamic Society of North America, an group long tied to Hamas and the broader Muslim Brotherhood community.
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ISNA was named an unindicted coconspirator within the then-largest terror financing case in Justice Department historical past, the 2008 case towards the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation.
El-Sayed has additionally raised more than $115,000 from people who’ve labored for one more unindicted coconspirator from the HLF bust, the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
That donor pipeline contains CAIR higher-ups, such because the group’s national board chair, Manal Fakhoury.
Lest we neglect: CAIR was based in 1994 as a entrance group to advance the pursuits of Hamas and the Brotherhood within the United States.
CAIR’s co-founder and govt director, Nihad Awad, mentioned he was “happy to see” the Hamas pogrom of Oct. 7, 2023.
And the United Arab Emirates has designated CAIR as a terrorist group — as have Texas and Florida, more lately.
This stench is hardly restricted to El-Sayed.
According to sharia-law-promoting former Women’s March co-chair Linda Sarsour, CAIR was the single “largest institutional donor” to the Unity and Justice Fund PAC, which spent massively in New York City final 12 months to ship Zohran Mamdani to Gracie Mansion.
Another shady tremendous PAC, American Priorities, has “channeled millions of dollars, primarily from donors with Arab, Muslim and/or Middle Eastern backgrounds, to a string of winning candidates in high-profile races,” Benjamin Weingarten of RealClear Investigations reviews.
That’s dangerous enough. But there’s additionally large infiltration on the national degree.
Last 12 months, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia deployed the one largest sum of money of any overseas nation — almost $92 million — to foyer for its pursuits in Washington.
Turkey was fourth; Israel wasn’t anyplace close.
In the 20 years starting in 2001, the dominion — whose nationals included most of the 9/11 hijackers that very same 12 months — retained the one most brokers registered beneath the Foreign Agents Registration Act (148).
Saudi frenemy Qatar, the religious and financial home of the Brotherhood worldwide, is routinely the single largest overseas funder of American greater training.
The Qataris cut large FARA checks to land favorable protection with prized retailers, equivalent to Tucker Carlson’s cesspool of a podcast.
The emirate owns a piece of the Washington Wizards and the Washington Capitals, and even a chunk of the Empire State Building.
Getting the image but?
Seedy overseas money is shaping our tradition and our politics.
But it’s not coming from the place the propagandists say it’s.
Josh Hammer is Newsweek senior editor-at-large and host of “The Josh Hammer Show.”
