Pro-Israel lobbying group Aipac secretly pouring millions into defeating progressive Democrats

American Israel Public Affairs Committee has disguised its efforts to undermine pro-Palestinian candidates

Aipac has spent more than $2m to defeat Summer Lee (pictured with Pittsburgh mayor Ed Gainey), who is running for a congressional seat in Pennsylvania. Photograph: Quinn Glabicki/Reuters

Chris McGreal

Tue 17 May 2022 03.00 EDT

The US’s most powerful pro-Israel lobby group is pouring millions of dollars into influencing Democratic congressional primary races to counter growing support for the Palestinian cause within the party, including elections today in Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s money is focused on blocking female candidates who, if elected, are likely to align with “the squad” of progressive members of congress who have been critical of Israel.

But it is funneled through a group, the United Democracy Project (UDP), that avoids mention of its creation by Aipac and seeks to decide elections by funding campaign messages about issues other than Israel.

The UDP has thrown $2.3m in to Tuesday’s Democratic primary race for an open congressional seat in Pennsylvania – one of a handful of contests targeted by the group where a leading candidate is overtly sympathetic to the Palestinians.

The money has mostly been spent in support of a former Republican congressional staffer turned Democrat, Steve Irwin, in an attempt to block a progressive state representative, Summer Lee, who is leading in opinion polls in the solidly Democratic district which includes Pittsburgh.

Lee has spoken in support of setting conditions for the US’s considerable aid to Israel, has accused Israel of “atrocities” in Gaza, and has drawn parallels between Israeli actions and the shooting of young black men in the US. She is endorsed by Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, members of “the squad” who support the Palestinian cause.

Irwin has defended Israeli government policies and questioned whether Lee has “a strong conviction that Israel has a right to exist”.

The UDP has also spent $2m in support of North Carolina state senator Valeria Foushee in today’s Democratic primary in an attempt to block Nida Allam, the political director of Senator Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign and the first Muslim American woman to hold elected office in North Carolina. Allam has participated in pro-Palestinian rallies and has been endorsed by members of the squad. She has also spoken out against antisemitism.

Aipac launched the UDP in December as a super political action committee, or Super Pac, which is permitted to spend without restriction in support of candidates but cannot make direct donations to campaigns.

The lobby group’s move into financial support for political campaigns for the first time in its 70 year history was prompted by alarm in Washington and Israel at the erosion of longstanding bipartisan support for the Jewish state in the US.

Opinion polls show younger Democrats are growing more critical of Israel, including American Jews, and that there is rising support for the Boycott, Sanctions and Divest (BDS) movement.

Israel is also concerned by the breaking of a longstanding taboo on comparing Israel’s domination of the Palestinians to apartheid South Africa after the publication of a series of international and Israeli human rights groups reports accusing Israel of practicing a form of apartheid.

The UDP has also spent $1.2m to protect the Texas Democratic congressman, Henry Cuellar, who faces a run-off later next week against Jessica Cisneros, a 28-year-old immigration lawyer who has spoken in support of the Palestinians and is endorsed by members of the squad.

Jessica Cisneros

campaigning with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Photograph: Eric Gay/AP

Cuellar is described as an ally by Aipac and co-founded the Congressional Caucus for the Advancement of Torah Values to combat “anti-Israel bigotry”.

After Amnesty International joined other human rights groups in accusing Israel of imposing apartheid, Cuellar accused the group of endangering Jews. “Israel is not an apartheid state. Full stop. These inaccuracies incite antisemitic behavior against the Jewish people,” he tweeted.

A smaller and more liberal pro-Israel group, J-Street, has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of Cisneros, saying she is committed to a more just solution to the conflict with the Palestinians.

J-Street’s spokesperson, Logan Bayroff, accused Aipac of being a Republican front organisation that strongly supported Donald Trump, and of attempting to intimidate candidates into avoiding criticism of Israel by implicitly threatening to fund campaigns against them.

“Aipac are taking all this money from Republican donors, and they’re obfuscating the fact that they’re a very Republican-aligned organisation while trying to persuade Democratic voters who they should support,” he said.

“The United Democracy Project sounds innocuous and the advertising that they’re running in these districts is about healthcare and reproductive rights and things that have nothing to do with Israel. Which makes sense because those are the things that decide elections, not Israel. But the reason that they’re aligning with certain candidates is because they are more aligned with their more hawkish positions on Israel, and because they fear that other candidates will be more progressive and aligned with the Palestinians.”

A UDP spokesman, Patrick Dorton, said the group was doing no more than running legitimate political advertising. “All we are doing is talking about candidate’s public record and that is something voters deserve to know,” he said.

Dorton said the group will be funding more campaigns.

“Our goal is to build the broadest bipartisan coalition in congress that supports the US-Israel relationship. We are proud to support pro-Israel progressive candidates including women of color,” he said. “We are looking at 10 to 15 other races where there is a pro-Israel candidate and a candidate that, if elected, would undermine the US-Israel relationship.”

Earlier this year, Aipac was accused by other leading supporters of Israel of being “morally bankrupt” and of putting Israel’s interests ahead of American democracy after it launched a separate political action committee that endorsed 37 Republicans candidates who voted against certifying Biden’s victory after the 6 January 2021 storming of the Capitol.

Aipac said that it supports politicians from both parties who will “advance the US-Israel relationship.

“It requires bipartisan support in Congress to adopt legislation that would advance that relationship. Consequently, we support members from both parties in their election races. In addition to the Republicans we have supported, we have made contributions to over 120 House Democrats, including half of the Congressional Black Caucus, half of the House Progressive Caucus, and the top Democratic leaders in the House,” Aipac said in a statement.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/17/pro-israel-lobby-defeat-democrats-palestinians-2022

 

Buffalo suspect may be latest mass shooter motivated by ‘eco-fascism’

Buffalo suspect allegedly calls himself ‘eco-fascist’ and blames migration for harm to the environment in document posted online

A makeshift memorial for the victims of the Buffalo shooting in New York. Photograph: Usman Ukalizai/AFP/Getty Images

Tue 17 May 2022 07.00 BST

Oliver Milman in New York

The suspected perpetrator of the deadly shooting in Buffalo, New York, on Saturday may have been the latest mass killer to be motivated by a growing fixation of rightwingers – environmental degradation and the impact of overpopulation.

The attack, that left 10 people shot dead and three wounded, has been described as a “hate crime and a case of racially-motivated violent extremism” by the FBI.

The 18-year-old suspect allegedly began firing his weapon in the car park of the Tops supermarket in Buffalo, before entering the store and continuing his murderous rampage inside, streaming the attack live online.

Authorities believe the killer chose the supermarket due to the surrounding area’s sizable Black community, with an 180-page manifesto believed to have been written and posted online by the suspect referencing his desire to “kill as many Blacks as possible” and his belief in the “great replacement theory”, which holds that white people are at risk of losing their status and traditional culture because of immigrants.

The manifesto, also, however, includes theories on the environment that are similar to screeds espoused by other recent mass murderers.

The Buffalo suspect calls himself an “eco-fascist” and blames migration for harm to the environment in the document posted online.

“For too long we have allowed the left to co-opt the environmentalist movement to serve their own needs,” the Buffalo manifesto states. “The left has controlled all discussion regarding environmental preservation whilst simultaneously presiding over the continued destruction of the natural environment itself through mass immigration and uncontrolled urbanization, whilst offering no true solution to either issue.”

This invocation of eco-fascism, or green racism, echoes that of a white nationalist who killed 51 people in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019.

“The invaders are the ones over-populating the world,” the Christchurch murderer wrote in his own manifesto. “Kill the invaders, kill the overpopulation and by doing so save the environment.”

Just a few months after the New Zealand attack, a gunman killed 23 people in El Paso, Texas, leaving behind a note that also blamed overpopulation for causing pollution. “If we can get rid of enough people, then our way of life can become more sustainable,” he wrote.

Studies have repeatedly shown that migration itself does not cause an increase in carbon emissions or other pollution – indeed, American-born people are far larger consumers of resources than new immigrants – and that voracious consumption, rather than population per se, is the primary driver of the climate and ecological crises that currently grip the world.

However, the latest shooting shows that a dangerously warped vision of environmentalism is now becoming an increasingly common animating force for rightwing extremists, according to Betsy Hartmann, an expert in the environment and migration at Hampshire College.

“It’s extremely frightening,” she said. “Eco-fascism has always been a part of white supremacy, even going back to Hitler, but it would seem to me in white supremacist circles it’s becoming a more accepted part of the ideology. It’s not an outlier anymore.”

Hartmann said the rise of Donald Trump and Republicans’ embrace of anti-immigrant rhetoric is fueling the spread of so-called eco-fascism, as well as growing alarm, particularly among younger people, over the climate emergency.

“For younger people, the more apocalyptic images of climate change can fit into the white supremacist view of apocalypse, too,” she said.

“It’s scary how much this person is taking from the Christchurch and El Paso killings, how he’s inspired by those things. It shows how powerful this has become, given how explicit it is now.”

A recasting of environmental concern in a racist context has been embraced by several prominent figures in the US, such as the Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who has called immigrants “unclean” and a threat to America’s environment, and the Republican attorney-general of Arizona, who has called for a border wall to be erected to avoid migrants not just arriving in the US via Mexico but allegedly worsening climate change.

Meanwhile, several rightwing political parties in Europe have resorted to what academics call “ecobordering”, where restrictions on immigration are touted as vital to protect the nativist stewardship of nature and where the ills of environmental destruction are laid upon those from developing countries, ignoring the far larger consumptive habits of wealthy nations and that impact on other countries, creating climate refugees.

In an analysis of 22 far-right parties in Europe, researchers found this thinking was rife and “portrays effects as causes and further normalizes racist border practices and colonial amnesia within Europe”.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/17/buffalo-shooting-suspect-eco-fascism

 

Racist ‘Replacement Theory’ Is Bleeding Into GOP Senate Campaigns

Multiple Republican Senate candidates have pushed claims that sound awfully like the white supremacist “great replacement” theory.

CJ

By Cameron Joseph

May 10, 2022, 4:36pm

When Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson was recently asked on Fox News about immigration reform, he floated a conspiracy theory that’s quickly becoming gospel on the right: that Democrats want a flood of immigrants to remake America and keep them in power.

“This administration wants complete open borders. And you have to ask yourself, why?” Johnson asked during an April 15 appearance with Larry Kudlow, suggesting an idea that has its roots in white nationalism. “Is it [that] really they want to remake the demographics of America to ensure that they stay in power forever?”

He’s far from the only Republican who espouses these beliefs. And he may soon have more colleagues in the Senate who believe that Democrats’ plan is to import enough eventual voters to take over control of the electorate for good: At least a half-dozen Republican Senate candidates have voiced similar sentiments on the campaign trail in recent weeks, a sign of how mainstream and deeply ingrained in modern Republican orthodoxy this conspiracy theory has become.

It’s similar to, though not exactly the same as, the “great replacement” theory, a white supremacist conspiracy theory that’s been popularized by the alt-right over the past decade. The theory posits that non-white immigrants are trying to replace white, native-born citizens in the U.S. and Europe by flooding into those countries and having more children than the native population. Many adherents of this false, racist theory claim it’s being orchestrated by a secret cabal of wealthy elites—often Jews.

Most Republican candidates aren’t going that deep into the fever swamps—but are pushing a similar claim, swapping in Democrats for elites and focusing on political domination instead of cultural replacement. That so many statewide candidates who may soon have the national stage are pushing this conspiracy theory shows the political potency they see in this message—and will further entrench it in the pantheon of conspiracies believed by a significant portion of conservatives.

An Associated Press-NORC poll released on Monday showed that fully one-third of Americans, and almost half of Republicans, believe that “there is a group of people in this country who are trying to replace native-born Americans with immigrants who agree with their political view.”

“There’s what you could call a partisan variation of the Great Replacement theory, a partisan argument that sounds similar but isn’t quite the same, that Democrats are letting in migrants to become Democratic voters and control the country that way,” said Mark Pitcavage, of the Anti-Defamation League. “And then there's the broad great replacement argument itself, which basically is that nonwhites are coming in to replace whites. That’s the one that’s most connected to white supremacy and the most problematic.” 

Ohio GOP Senate nominee J.D. Vance, who won his primary last Tuesday, argued on multiple occasions over the past month that the reason President Biden wanted to end Title 42, which automatically sends immigrants who cross the border back to Mexico, was because he and Democrats see them as guaranteed future votes. 

At a late-April town hall, Vance claimed that lifting Title 42 would mean 250,000 immigrants entering the U.S. every month, allowing Democrats to import 10 million to 15 million future voters, 70 percent of whom he claimed, without offering evidence, would vote Democratic.

“So you’re talking about a shift in the democratic makeup of this country that would mean we never win, meaning Republicans would never win a national election in this country ever again,” Vance said in Portsmouth, Ohio.

He’s even put it in his campaign advertising.

“Are you a racist? Do you hate Mexicans?” Vance asked with a smirk in one ad that his team released last month. “The media calls us racist for wanting to build Trump’s wall. They censor us, but it doesn’t change the truth. Joe Biden’s open border is killing Ohioans, with more illegal drugs and more Democrat voters pouring into this country.”

Vance’s primary win last week makes him the favorite to replace retiring GOP Sen. Rob Portman in Republican-leaning Ohio.

Vance got a big early boost in his race from billionaire PayPal founder Peter Thiel, who gave $10 million to his super PAC. Thiel’s other major campaign investment was to his former employee Blake Masters, who’s running for Senate in Arizona. Masters has floated similar rhetoric for months.

“The Democrats want to change the demographics of this country,” Masters said on a podcast in late April. “They think that if they can bring in millions and millions and millions of illegal aliens, someday they'll be able to grant them amnesty to grant them citizenship and make them reliable Democrat voters. I think it's an electoral plan.” 

“If you connect the dots as a candidate for office and say, ‘Look, obviously the Democrats, they hope to just change the demographics of our country, they hope to import an entirely new electorate,’ man, they call you a racist and a bigot,” Masters said on another podcast a few days later.

Masters has been pushing rhetoric like this for months, claiming in an October video that Democrats want to “change the demographics of this country” in order to “consolidate power so they can never lose another election.”

Vance’s closest rival in his primary, former Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, was more explicit in embracing the “great replacement” theory. Mandel, who is Jewish, claimed on multiple occasions without offering any evidence that efforts to expand immigration were being funded by  George Soros, a frequent bogeyman for anti-Semites who claim Jews are behind Great Replacement efforts. At one September rally, Mandel claimed that the plot was to have immigrants move in and out-breed native Americans and “use their constitution and use their laws against them.”

“What Biden is doing at the border, which I think is funded by Soros and coordinated by the Obama cabal, they're intentionally violating the rule of law. They're trampling the rule of law and they're intentionally flouting the border,” he said on Breitbart News last October. “This is about changing the face of America, figuratively and literally. They are trying to change our culture, change our demographics and change our electorate. This is all about power.”

Other GOP Senate candidates have voiced similar views in recent weeks. Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who’s running for the Senate, claimed on Glenn Beck’s show in late April that Democrats “are fundamentally trying to change this country through their illegal immigration policy.”

Former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, one of Schmitt’s primary opponents, recently claimed that “Joe Biden's policies are an assault on the entire idea of America” and that the president is “wiping out the distinction between citizens and non-citizens, and he's doing it on purpose.”

This isn’t new to American politicians, either. Iowa GOP Rep. Steve King’s 2017 tweet that “We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies,” and this rhetoric isn’t that different from that used by nativist conservatives from Pat Buchanan in the 1990s to Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo in the 2000s to some of former President Donald Trump’s rhetoric on the campaign trail and in the White House.

But it’s become an increasingly common talking point over the past year—with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson playing a key role.

“I know that the left and all the little gatekeepers on Twitter become literally hysterical if you use the term ‘replacement’ if you suggest that the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate—the voters now casting ballots—with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World. But they become hysterical because that’s what’s happening actually. Let’s just say it. That’s true,” Carlson declared last April.

A few days later, Pennsylvania GOP Rep. Scott Perry claimed in a committee hearing that many Americans were concerned that “we’re replacing national-born Americans, native-born Americans to permanently transform the landscape of this very nation.”

Carlson went even further in September, claiming Biden wanted to “reduce the political power of people whose ancestors lived here and dramatically increase the proportion of Americans newly arrived from the Third World,” before explicitly using the term “great replacement.”

A handful of Republicans defended Carlson’s comments then, including Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz:

This theory, which largely focuses on Latino immigrants, ignores the reality that immigrants are far from monolithic in their political views, as well as the fact that non-citizens cannot vote in the U.S. Republicans, including Trump, have also pushed a related but different conspiracy theory for years that non-citizen immigrants vote in huge numbers. 

It’s also ironic that this GOP rhetoric is resurgent from GOP candidates now, given that Republicans made massive gains in some Latino and Asian-American communities during the last election. Tejano-heavy South Texas, a Democratic bastion for generations, swung hard to the right in 2020—some counties swung as much as 50 points towards the GOP. Miami-Dade County in south Florida, which has a massive population of Cuban-Americans, gave Joe Biden just a seven-point win in 2020 after breaking for Hillary Clinton by a 30-point margin in 2016.

“Using identity politics like this is dangerous and extreme,” said GOP strategist Leslie Sanchez, the author of Los Republicanos.

Sanchez added that candidates who incorrectly assume immigrants are “all zombies that are going to vote collectively” threaten the inroads that Republicans are making with Latinos. 

Extremism experts warn great replacement rhetoric has inspired violence against immigrants and Jews—and the more it is mainstreamed, the more dangerous it becomes.

At the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville in 2017, tiki torch-wielding white supremacists chanted “You will not replace us” and “Jews will not replace us,” just one day before they rioted. The murderers who killed 11 worshippers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018 and 23 mostly Mexican-American shoppers in El Paso, Texas in 2019 promoted versions of the theory, as did the man who shot up two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2019.

“A lot of people are articulating this conspiracy theory, which is not only unfair to Democrats but more importantly dangerous for immigrants,” said Pitcavage. “Given this atmosphere, this miasma of hate and intolerance, it doesn’t take much to push someone over the cliff, where they’ll act on this.”

https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7nxmk/gop-great-replacement-theory