Israel, AIPAC and Difficult Questions for Democrats

The Daily

AIPAC's growing influence in Democratic primaries has sparked a political reckoning over U.S.-Israel relations, turning support for Israel into a divisive litmus test. As AIPAC shifts from bipartisan unity to aggressive

Key takeaways

• AIPAC's shift from bipartisan to partisan has polarized U.S. politics

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) From the New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is the Daily. In this year's midterm elections, APAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group, has spent a record amount of money, mostly in Democratic primaries, to either oust candidates or support candidates, based on a changing definition of what it means to support Israel. Today, my colleague, Jonathan, Mahler, explains how this has created a new litmus test for the left. At a time, perhaps, when America's relationship with Israel has never faced more scrutiny. It's Wednesday, July 29. Jonathan Mahler, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. Jonathan, the relationship between you. in the U.S. and Israel has for years been a huge topic in American politics. But what's felt particularly new and notable, to me at least, is how much that relationship is being both questioned and criticized in this year's midterm elections. You have been studying this relationship and how it intersects with our politics for many years and covered it for the New York Times. And so we wanted to turn to you in this moment to understand how you are seeing and thinking about all of this. Well, I have been covering the U.S. Israel. relationship kind of in one form or another for decades, I'm almost embarrassed to say. And this looks to me like a very different moment in the U.S.-Israel relationship. I mean, for the first time, you have a lot of politicians coming out very publicly and in some cases like aggressively putting distance between the U.S. and Israel. I mean, that was for decades unheard of. That was political suicide for a politician. And that is no longer the case, especially on the Democratic side of the aisle. I mean, it's true we've seen some on the right question and challenge their relationship, but the Republican Party is still really, by and large, pro-Israel. And that is not so much the case anymore on the Democratic side. And that is a huge paradigm shift. And it's a shift we're seeing in the halls of Congress, but also out on the campaign trail. Just give us a couple examples of what you mean by that. Yeah. So a couple of weeks ago, in the House, something like a hundred Democrats voted to end U.S. military aid to Israel. That's like, almost half of all House Democrats. The effort failed. I mean, only one Republican supported it. And so the aid's going to continue. But the vote was really unprecedented. I mean, we've never seen so many Democrats take a vote like that. And on top of that, we're seeing support for Israel become a major issue in Democratic primaries across the country. It's really become a key litmus test in all sorts of races, from New York to Illinois to Michigan. And it's really manifested in a debate over APAC, or the American Israel Public Affairs, committee. It's the main lobbying group working in support of Israel in the U.S. And at this point, APEC has basically become synonymous with Israel. Right. When you see people talking or debating AAPC, what they're essentially debating is U.S. support for Israel. Exactly. APEC is seen as a proxy for Israel. And on top of that, it's also become a stand-in for this larger debate over big money in politics, because APEC really has become one of the biggest spenders this election cycle. It's poured huge amounts of money into primaries, trying to support. candidates, but also to oust them really on the basis of their views toward Israel. So just to bring this all together, what we're seeing happening right now is a few different forces colliding at the same time in these midterms via this debate over APAC. We're seeing both the U.S.-Israel relationship really become front and center and this debate about the role that money should play in our politics. Exactly. It's really a remarkable political moment. And it's one that APAC helped create, probably unintentionally. It's really back. itself into a corner which has forced Democrats to take a side in these big debates. And it's gotten to this point because of a series of key decisions that APEC made since its founding. So I want to talk about the history of APEC and how we've gotten here. Let's go back to the beginning when APEC was formed. Sort of tell us about that origin story. So APEC was founded really just a few years after the founding of the state of Israel back in 1948. And it really had a simple mission. The idea was to defend and protect and strengthen the U.S. Israel relationship, which was a fairly simple thing to do back then because we were in the aftermath of the Holocaust. You know, the state of Israel was created with the blessing of the United Nations. America was very much on Israel's side. And so APEC was born to kind of defend and protect that relationship on both sides of the political aisle. Meaning it was supposed to be bipartisan. Yes, it was supposed to be a bipartisan organization. And it very much was. But it is kind of interesting to note, in its earliest incarnation, APEC reflected the politics of the state of Israel, which we have to remember was a socialist country. I mean, it was a labor Zionist country. So Israel was very far left, and so was APEC. You know, having said that, they very deliberately courted support on both sides of the political aisle. Both Republican and Democratic politicians would go on APEC supported trips to Israel. They both received campaign contributions from APEC. So AAC, you know, now we think of them as a incredibly polarizing force in American politics. It's important to remember that they were once actually a really unifying force in American politics. APEC was something that both Republicans and Democrats could agree on. It was truly a bipartisan group. And just tell us at a very high level, what was the pitch that APEC was making to the U.S.? Like, what was the rationale for the bipartisan support they were trying to curry at the time? I mean, it was honestly a pretty easy pitch. APEC could say and did say that America's interest, and Israel's interests are perfectly aligned. Israel is the one real democracy in the Middle East, so Israel shares your democratic values. And APAC could also say that Israel is a vital strategic ally, particularly during the Cold War, when a number of the Arab nations were aligned with the Soviet Union, and Israel was aligned with the United States. And it had a very powerful military and intelligence operation that was really useful to the United States. So APAC could sort of lean on all of that to make its case to both Democrats and Republicans and to say nothing of the fact that there are a lot of Jews living in America. A lot of American Jews who were Zionists, who felt strongly about the existence and protection of the state of Israel. And American Jews, you know, of course, had some degree of influence in American politics. And in turn, what is APEC able to achieve for Israel through all of this bipartisan lobbying? Yeah, I mean, over time, it's meant billions of dollars in military aid In fact, Israel has long been the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid, period. It's allowed them to buy fighter jets, their Iron Dome defense system. So much of the Israeli military apparatus is in part a product of that U.S. aid. But it's also been political support on the world stage, with the U.S. really firmly backing Israel for decades and decades. So it's very interesting to note that APEC started as a bipartisan organization. Obviously, that is not the case anymore. When did we start seeing that shift? Like, what was the first big inflection point? You know, of course, no relationship is perfect. So over the years, there would be minor dustups between Israel and the United States, and APEC would have to manage those moments. They were always a bit tricky when there was a little bit of tension between the two countries. But nothing really major, nothing enduring until 2015. In 2015, something really kind of seismic happened for the U.S.-Israel relationship and in turn for APEC. And that is... Today, after two years of negotiations, the United States, together were our international partners, has achieved something that decades of animosity has not. President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran. Today, President Obama announced an agreement that he says will keep an atomic bomb out of Iranian hands for more than a decade. Critics say it will do the opposite. Which Israel was furious about. Prime Minister Netanyahu really did not want to have. But Obama was going ahead with it anyway. And so in this moment, the Republicans in Congress... The speaker has invited the Israeli prime minister to address a joint session of Congress... Invite Bebe to come speak before Congress. The general protocol for this kind of thing is for Congress to consult with the White House. Our understanding is that that was not done on purpose. A real poke in the eye to Obama. A real poke in the eye to Obama who said that he did not want this to happen. But Beebe accepts the invitation. Members of Congress, I have the high privilege and distinct honor of presenting to you the prime minister of Israel, his excellency, Benjamin Nanyahu. He comes to Congress. My friends, for over here, we've been told that no deal is better than a bad deal. He uses that moment to invade against this nuclear deal. That the only alternative to this bad deal is war. That's just not true. The alternative to this bad deal is a much better deal. And that moment put APEC in a really difficult situation, because now they're faced