AIPAC v. The Squad

Why Jamaal Bowman Must Go

I am in the midst of a curious and unusual experience: an election where my vote matters. I live in New York, so it usually doesn’t. My congressional district and my town—New Rochelle—are overwhelmingly Democratic. We usually don’t get deluged with political ads or phone calls or door-knockers. But it’s different this year. We are misrepresented by Congressman Jamaal Bowman, a particularly crude member of The Squad; he is being challenged by a solid, sane moderate Democrat named George Latimer, who has served us well, for years, as Westchester Country Executive. This is not even a close call for me.

So I’ve put out the Latimer lawn signs and contributed to his campaign. But there are complications. Our neighbors across the street, a pair of very nice white liberals, have decorated their lawn with Bowman signs. You must understand this: Jamaal Bowman has called the reports of rapes and torture on October 7 “Israeli propaganda.” He later retracted it—but, jeez. He has voted too often with Marjorie Taylor Greene and against President Biden on the bipartisan infrastructure bill, on aid to Ukraine and Israel, on other issues where the left and right crazies congregate in “symbolic” harmony. In the past, he has indulged conspiracy theories about 9/11. He has used every twisted play in the angry-black-lefty playbook, calling Latimer a racist and anti-Muslim, and weak on abortion rights and…well, you name it. He pulled a fire alarm in the House of Representatives to delay a vote he didn’t like. He is, not to put too fine a point on it, a jerk. So I asked the neighbors why they were voting for this guy.

“AIPAC,” was the one word reply.

Ah, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. There have been times—whole decades—of my life when AIPAC’s support of a candidate would have been sufficient cause for me to oppose him or her. AIPAC is, I believe, a rather embarrassing organization—supine supporters of Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition, reflexive opponents of good ideas like the Iran nuclear deal. Indeed, I voted for Bowman—didn’t know how crazy-left he was at that point—against Elliot Engel in a primary four years ago because of Engel’s reflexive Bibism. AIPAC reflects neither the diversity of opinion in the American Jewish community, nor in Israel itself. The Netanyahu road, over the past 25 years, has brought Zion very close to disaster. It has made near-impossible the dream that I and most Israelis and most Palestinians used to share—a two-state solution. It has empowered despicable extremists like the Jewish settlers who have been trying to disrupt aid shipments to Gaza; indeed, it favored Hamas surreptitiously—a mind-boggling disgrace—over the more moderate Palestinian Authority. AIPAC will, no doubt, embrace Bibi when he interferes in the 2024 election, in favor of Donald Trump, by addressing a Joint Session of Congress.

But, in the current fraught atmosphere, is AIPAC a sufficient one-word answer for supporting a bloviating fool like Bowman? The Washington Post’s Karen Attiah apparently thinks so:

The conservative pro-Israel lobbying giant AIPAC announced this spring that it would take extraordinary steps to remove progressive lawmakers who have called for a cease-fire in Gaza. Through a new super PAC called the United Democracy Project, funded primarily by right-wing billionaires, the group has pledged to spend $100 million this year to oust candidates it considers unsupportive of Israel.

Keep in mind: The Biden administration backs a plan for Gaza that would include a cease-fire, and polls show Americans increasingly support a cease-fire. Yet AIPAC is going full steam ahead. Bowman is the lobby’s first major target.

BUT…do you know who else backs the Biden plan for Gaza, even though he has received AIPAC support? George Latimer. His views on the situation have been identical to Joe Biden’s. So Attiah’s notion—and that of the other left-wing Squadonites—that this is some sort of right-wing coup against righteous progressives is nonsense. This is a revolt of the sane center against the Democratic Party’s self-destructive left wing fringe.

For one thing, the members of The Squad are not so righteous. Some have been megaphones for blatant Jew-hatred. Many, including Bowman, have been members of Democratic Socialists of America, a toxic fringe group that finds even Hakeem Jeffries—sadly but inevitably, a Bowman supporter—too moderate. There are only two reasons why “progressives” might describe themselves as socialists in the 21st century: Either they haven’t read the history of the 20th century or they’re just trying to piss people off (and hurt the Democratic Party’s chances with the vast moderate American majority). All this at a moment when the anti-Zionist protests have become brutally ugly, especially here in New York—where Jews on the Brooklyn Museum’s board of directors had their houses splashed with red, pro-Hamas inverted triangles last week. (The left has this incredibly ability to identity crucial institutions in the international fascist-colonialist conspiracy…like the Brooklyn Museum.)

We should, at this blistering moment, discard the notion that “anti-zionism” is anything other than a fig leaf for Jew-hatred. Oh, there may be a couple or three idealists who actually believe in a one-state solution, where Jews and Palestinians thrive together. That’s been my dream in the past, too; and it may be possible some day—the two peoples have an awful lot in common—but two-states living side by side in peace seems an improbable enough goal for now. The pro-Palestinian college protesters could, plausibly, plead idealism and ignorance. They’ve been brainwashed by a cadre of Crypto-Marxist professors trying to shoehorn Israel into their simplistic oppressors v. oppressed ideology. But school’s out for summer—and the people in the streets now are openly pro-Hamas, suppurating sewers of Jew hatred.

And while “AIPAC” might have been a sufficient one-word reason for me to oppose a candidate in some races in the past, I’ll take AIPAC over the useful idiots carrying water for Hamas and floating fantastical anti-Zionist scenarios right now. There really is no comparison.

This week, Hillary Clinton, in a rare maverick act, endorsed Latimer over Bowman. It would be nice if Chuck Schumer did the same. The election is June 25 and the stakes are extremely high. If Bowman wins, Donald Trump will be able to say on June 26: See, the Democrats are a bunch of crazy anti-Semitic socialists. And he may say it again on June 27, in debate against Biden—and Biden will have to express his support for Bowman, a man who has said that the well-documented rapes and torture of October 7 was “Israeli propaganda.” One hates to use the cliche: a fight for the soul of the Democratic Party. But if this race isn’t, nothing is.

Baker on Bush

Lest we get too dark, former Secretary of State James Baker wrote a lovely piece in the Wall Street Journal about his great friend George H. W. Bush last week.