Jewish Pittsburghers slam AIPAC’s support for Republican extremists

Washington (QNN)- More than 240 Jewish American voters in Pittsburgh have signed a letter denouncing the US’s largest pro-Israel group, AIPAC, for backing extremist Republican election candidates while spending millions of dollars to oppose a Democrat who would be Pennsylvania’s first Black female member of Congress.

The letter condemned the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) for its attempts to defeat Summer Lee, a candidate for the district that includes Pittsburgh, after failing to block her during the Democratic primaries earlier this year because of her criticisms of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians, according to The Guardian.

The signatories said they were “outraged that at this critical moment in American history, Aipac has chosen to cast Democrats like Lee as extremists” while endorsing more than 100 Republican candidates who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

The letter suggested that AIPAC does not represent the views of the majority of American Jews and is working against their interests by also endorsing Republicans who promote white supremacy, a particularly sensitive issue in a city where 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogues were murdered in an antisemitic attack four years ago.

“We also condemn Aipac endorsement of lawmakers who have promoted the antisemitic ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory that helped inspire the murder of eleven members of the three synagogues housed at Tree of Life,” the letter said.

“Clearly, their definition of ‘extreme’ is completely opposite to that held by the majority of American Jews – who worry about the stark rise in antisemitism and white nationalism in our state and in our country.”

It is the first time AIPAC has funded support for a Republican contender for Congress over a Democrat in a general election.

Aipac’s campaign funding arm, the United Democracy Project (UDP), is paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for television advertising and mailings against Lee, The Guardian reported, adding the group is backing Mike Doyle, who supports a federal ban on abortion and has described himself as very conservative.

The UDP alone spent over $26 million on Democratic races during the last primary cycle. $10.5 million of that was spent on attack ads, but UDP never mentioned ‘Israel’ in any of them.

The UDP has posted a leaflet to voters calling Lee “too extreme” because of her positions on police, prison and immigration reform.

The leaflet makes no mention of her criticisms of Israeli occupation policies.

UDP’s primary attack ads on Lee claimed that she was a divisive force within the Democratic party and chided her for being unsupportive of President Biden’s agenda. “Summer Lee: more interested in fighting Democrats than getting results,” it declares.

Lee has drawn AIPAC’s fire for her support of setting conditions for the US aid to ‘Israel’, for accusing ‘Israel’ of “atrocities” in Gaza, and for drawing parallels between Israeli actions against Palestinians and the shooting of young black men in the US.

“When I hear American pols use the refrain ‘Israel has the right to defend itself’ in response to undeniable atrocities on a marginalized population, I can’t help but think of how the west has always justified indiscriminate and disproportionate force and power on weakened and marginalized people,” Lee tweeted during Israel’s May 2021 attack on Gaza. “The US has never shown leadership in safeguarding human rights of folks its othered But as we fight against injustice here in the movement for black lives we must stand against injustice everywhere. Inhumanities against the Palestinian people cannot be tolerated or justified.”

In a tweet earlier this week, Lee accused Aipac of funding extremists: “8 days from making history in PA–where Black women have never had federal representation–Aipac is funding my extreme GOP opponent. Since endorsing 100+ insurrectionists, Aipac has repeatedly shown us that democracy has never been as important as keeping progressives out.”

In a recent interview with The Lever’s David Sirota in Pittsburgh, Lee was asked why is AIPAC’s super PAC spending millions on the race? She said she believes that the organization is targeting her because she’s “a progressive Black woman.”

She continued: “I can find no other answer or reasoning, but for the fact that progressive Black women in these spaces pose a threat to corporate interests and to corporate power. And these are Republican billionaires who are worried about their bottom line.”

One of those who initiated the letter from members of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community was Ritchie Tabachnick, the local political director of J Street.

Tabachnick said the letter speaks for the majority of the city’s Jews because they are disturbed at AIPAC “supporting some of the most extreme Republicans, people who make openly antisemitic remarks promote antisemitic conspiracy theories”.

“They are trying to control the narrative,” he said.
But Tabachnik said he does not believe Aipac represents the views of most of the US’s Jewish community.

“They are a loud, politically smart minority,” he said of the group.

Aipac denies taking sides against the Democrats, saying that Lee’s views put her “outside of the Democratic mainstream”.