[“To take money from a lobbying group that dictates your foreign
policy, I think it’s completely unacceptable. I do not think it’s
OK to take money from a group that openly keeps an apartheid system
where people’s rights are violated."]
[[link removed]]

A NEW STRATEGY TO TAKE ON AIPAC: ACTUALLY TAKE THEM ON  
[[link removed]]


 

Ryan Grim
July 18, 2023
badnews.substack.com
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ “To take money from a lobbying group that dictates your foreign
policy, I think it’s completely unacceptable. I do not think it’s
OK to take money from a group that openly keeps an apartheid system
where people’s rights are violated." _

Pervez Agwan,

 

The week is young, but the House of Represents has already embarked on
its semi-regular, bipartisan ritual of pausing legislative business to
condemn critics of Israel and celebrate that nation’s virtues. The
only twist is that a congressional resolution put up for a vote on
Tuesday
[[link removed]] does
less to hail Israel’s more benign qualities, this time focused on
rebutting the reality that it is, in its present incarnation, a racist
and apartheid state.

The resolution produced a lot of well-earned jokes along the lines of:
“My ‘I’m not a racist or apartheid state’ t-shirt is raising a
lot of questions already answered by my t-shirt.’”

The latest controversy began on Saturday evening in Chicago at the
annual Netroots Nation convention, a gathering of progressive
operatives and politicians. During a panel, protesters came for Rep.
Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., urging her to support legislation that bars
Israel from using U.S. funds to detain children. Rep. Pramila Jayapal,
D-Wash., stood up to respond to the protesters and in doing so agreed
with their claim that Israel is a “racist state.” 

As Jayapal later told the New York Times’s Michelle Goldberg
[[link removed]],
she knew as she walked offstage that she’d stepped in it. The state
may be stacked with proudly racist ministers
[[link removed]],
some of whom have previously been convicted of inciting racism and
supporting terrorism against Arabs, and the state may legally treat
different people under its control differently based on their religion
and ethnicity — dubbed by Amnesty International to amount to
apartheid
[[link removed]] —
but bluntly calling it a “racist state” runs into a “thick
lattice of taboos,” Goldberg noted.

Jayapal quickly clarified her remarks, but a bipartisan group of her
colleagues circulated a letter condemning her anyway and pushed for
the resolution in response. The resolution is striking in its brevity:
“Resolved by the House of Representatives, That it is the sense of
Congress that the State of Israel is not a racist or apartheid state;
Congress rejects all forms of antisemitism and xenophobia; and the
United States will always be a staunch partner and supporter of
Israel.”

On Tuesday, nine Democrats voted no — Reps. Jamaal Bowman, Cori
Bush, André Carson, Summer Lee, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar,
Ayanna Pressley, Delia Ramirez, Rashida Tlaib — and one, Betty
McCollum, voted present. Jayapal voted for the resolution.

The pushback against Jayapal is an escalation of a confrontation
initially aimed at Reps. Omar
[[link removed]] and Tlaib
[[link removed]] by
Israeli government defenders, which expanded into a full-blown war on
progressive candidates
[[link removed]] in
Democratic primaries in 2022. The American Israel Public Affairs
Committee and its ally, Democratic Majority for Israel, spent millions
targeting progressive challengers who spoke out about Israel for blue
seats. And that cycle, a number of progressive candidates eased
— or in some cases sprinted 
[[link removed]]—
away from previous support of causes associated with Palestinian human
rights. 

But contra the chilling effect AIPAC may be having nationwide, one
challenger to an incumbent Democrat in Houston is taking the polar
opposite approach. Pervez Agwan is running against the AIPAC-endorsed
Rep. Lizzie Fletcher as an “unapologetically progressive Dem” and
criticizing Fletcher for taking money from AIPAC, hoping to turn any
impending spending against him into a weakness for Fletcher.

“To take money from a lobbying group that dictates your foreign
policy, I think it’s completely unacceptable,” Agwan told The
Intercept in an interview. “I do not think it’s OK to take money
from a group that openly keeps an apartheid system and an open-air
prison where people’s rights are violated.”

Agwan saw the influence of AIPAC in the response to Jayapal’s
remarks. “Representative Jayapal’s remarks are clearly being taken
out of context by Democrats and Republicans alike who refuse to allow
criticism of Israel and its actions because of their ties with groups
like AIPAC,” he said. “In reality, Israel is an apartheid state
that commits atrocities against native Palestinians on a daily basis.
That is something that should absolutely be criticized but
unfortunately, Republicans and establishment Democrats are too
concerned with offending the Israel lobby who bankrolls their
campaigns to be honest about what’s going on.”

Agwan, a graduate of MIT who made his career in the clean tech
industry, is running on a progressive platform, supportive of an
expanded Green New Deal and Medicare for All. But as a candidate
challenging Fletcher from the left, and particularly a Muslim one,
Agwan has an additional obstacle to get past.

In the 2022 cycle, AIPAC’s super PAC spent some $40 million, nearly
all of it directed at defeating progressive Democrats in primaries.
Agwan, who has raised $300,000 with eight months of campaigning still
to go (in the quarter ending June 30, he reported raising $221,000),
is running toward them. “Most people want the United States not to
be sending aid to countries that violate human rights. And it starts
with electing people that aren’t going to be bought off by any
lobbying group. So I think Lizzie really needs to start shifting her
stance, and she won’t do it, because she’s funded by AIPAC,” he
said. 

Fletcher has carved out a fairly standard pro-business, pro-Israel,
socially liberal record as a Democrat. First elected to Congress in
the 2018 blue wave, she beat a more progressive candidate in the
primary, flipped a red seat blue, and quickly joined the New Democrat
Coalition
[[link removed]],
the voice for the corporate wing of the party. A corporate attorney by
training, she cast reliable Democratic votes in the House, and in
2020, she held onto her seat by a 3-point margin against her
Republican opponent. 

In 2018, she faced organized labor opposition to her candidacy based
on her work as a partner at AZA Law, which largely represents
employers and won a major case against local janitorial workers
represented by the SEIU, who were predominantly immigrants. AZA Law
boasted, in its effort to attract future business from employers, that
it won the case in part by studying the social media feeds of the jury
pool to make sure the jury was stacked with Donald Trump supporters.

he case was ideologically motivated to destroy labor: PJS, the
Fletcher firm’s client, was involved with Empower Texans, a
right-wing group working to undermine organized labor in Texas. She
won her race regardless; union power remains weak in Texas.

In the 2022 cycle, her Texas district was redrawn to be deep blue; it
now runs from the middle of Houston west, through the wealthy suburb
of Bellaire and out to the increasingly diverse areas of Alief and
Sugar Land. The new district is now the most diverse in Texas, with
nearly three-quarters of the population nonwhite, according to Census
data from 2020, which may in fact undercount the diversity. Three in
10 residents are Hispanic, 21 percent Black, and 22 percent Asian
[[link removed]]. She carried the deep-blue seat by
nearly 30 points. In 2023, she was named chair of the New Democrat
Coalition Trade Task Force. But while the redrawn seat may be safer
for Democrats, it may not be safer for Fletcher.

Agwan is Fletcher’s first primary challenger since winning office,
and, with family spread from India to Pakistan, he shares a background
with many of his potential constituents. Agwan said that his campaign
is speaking for a broad base in the district that doesn’t feel
represented.

“This campaign isn’t about me going out there, it’s about a
collective movement of people here in Houston, that are from these
communities, that are from Arab American and Muslim American, and from
Middle Eastern and from Palestinian communities. And we recognize the
atrocities that are happening there that are funded by the American
taxpayer dollar, but also being pushed on us by lobby groups like the
ones you just mentioned,” he said, in response to a question about
whether he’s nervous about spending from AIPAC or Democratic
Majority for Israel. “So we’re not scared. We have to stand up
because their presence in our democracy — for that matter any
foreign lobby or corporate lobby’s presence in our democracy — is
really diluting the power of the average American person.”

The large Pakistani community, he said, is also concerned about
democratic backsliding there amid the ongoing repression of the party
of former Prime Minister Imran Khan. Rep. Greg Casar of Austin
recently introduced legislation to pressure the State Department on
the unfolding turmoil, and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who is running for
mayor of Houston, is a founder of the Congressional Pakistan Caucus.
“It’s very important that Pakistanis hold open, free and fair
elections, and let the public decide, but [the military establishment]
won’t,” said Agwan. “They won’t let Imran Khan even
participate in an election. So as a congressman, I’d be the first to
fight for that.”

Fletcher, meanwhile, has been a consistent defender of Israel, even as
it has come in for criticism among many of her rank-and-file
colleagues. During the Israeli bombing campaign during the Gaza war of
spring 2021, Fletcher’s statement condemned only Hamas and
offered the requisite
[[link removed]],
“Israel has a right to defend itself against these attacks.”

In her first year in Congress, Fletcher was faced with the choice of
going on a delegation to Israel with AIPAC; going with J Street, which
takes a more critical line toward the Israeli government and includes
dissident voices in its trip; or to not go at all. She went on the
AIPAC-sponsored trip
[[link removed]].

The vote on the congressional resolution comes as the House prepares
to welcome Israel President Isaac Herzog for an address. Only a
handful of members — including Reps. Omar, Tlaib, Bush,
Ocasio-Cortez, and Bowman — have vowed to boycott.

Among the most controversial questions facing candidates is BDS
[[link removed]]:
a strategy of boycotts, sanctions, and pressure to divest
[[link removed]] either from
Israel
[[link removed]] generally
or companies doing business in the occupied territories. “I support
ending all aid to and implementing economic sanctions on any foreign
country that egregiously violates human rights,” Agwan said.

_Badnews Substack is a politics newsletter, written by Ryan Grim, DC
bureau chief for The Intercept, co-host of Counter Points and
Deconstructed, and author of the book "We've Got People."_

* AIPAC
[[link removed]]
* Israel
[[link removed]]
* Muslim-Americans
[[link removed]]
* anti-union consultants
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]

Manage subscription
[[link removed]]

Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]