(RNS) — “Every single Muslim holding public office in America is a trojan horse, and a threat to both national security and our republic,” U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., posted on social media site X last Friday. On Sunday, she followed up with: “If not wanting to be blown up, stabbed, or rammed by a car by a radical Islamist in the United States of America makes us Islamophobes, then so be it.”
Soon to be out of her job in Congress after failing even to make the runoff in South Carolina’s Republican gubernatorial primary, Mace is presumably angling for a new career as a Newsmax host or a YouTube influencer. The point, though, is that anti-Muslim advocacy has again become a political war cry in the Republican Party.
The Texas GOP, for example, has made “Don’t Sharia Our Texas” one of its top legislative priorities, referring to Islamic religious law. The old claim that Islam is not a religion has been revived. And President Donald Trump has begun referring to Abdul El-Sayed, the newly selected Democratic senatorial candidate from Michigan, by his full name “Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed” — reprising his habit of calling his presidential predecessor “Barack Hussein Obama.”
By contrast, pro-Israel advocacy is proceeding sotto voce. The formidable lobby American Israel Public Affairs Committee has led the way, investing millions in defeating Democratic primary candidates who don’t meet its criteria for supporting Israel — not by advertising their lack of support for the Jewish state, but by trumpeting other issues. (Notably, that was not its approach in working to defeat Republican Rep. Thomas Massie in the Kentucky primary in May.)
In February, an AIPAC-funded super PAC, the United Democracy Project, spent $2.3 million to defeat former U.S. Rep. Tom Malinowski in the Democratic primary for New Jersey’s 11th congressional district, running ads that highlighted his 2019 vote supporting funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and raising questions over his COVID-19 pandemic-era stock trading. Malinowski is a politically moderate former State Department official whose sin was to express openness to imposing conditions on U.S. military aid to Israel.
Similarly, in March, two groups tied to AIPAC, titled Elect Chicago Women and Affordable Chicago Now, spent over $5 million in a failed effort to defeat Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss for Illinois’ ninth congressional district. Biss, the grandson of Holocaust survivors, describes himself as a liberal Zionist who supports a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians.
Likewise, in spending $32 million in its unsuccessful effort to defeat El-Sayed in this month’s Michigan primary, AIPAC did not mention foreign policy, instead framing his opponent, Haley Stevens, as a pragmatic, tested leader focused on Michigan manufacturing, the auto industry rescue and local economic security. Now, the organization is reportedly considering whether to throw its weight behind Republican Mike Rogers in the general election. (In the past, the organization has demonstrated its non-partisan bona fides by staying out of general elections.)
To be sure, AIPAC is hardly the only advocacy group that pursues its ends by opposing candidates it doesn’t like with issues other than the one it cares about. According to Politico, a new renewable energy PAC called Invest in Tomorrow PAC did not so much as mention clean energy in helping to defeat three Republican congressmen in their primary campaigns this year. The three — Chip Roy of Texas, Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Andy Ogles of Tennessee — had all urged Republican leaders in Congress to quickly phase out clean energy subsidies in the Big Beautiful Bill.
But it’s not terrific for AIPAC to play into the antisemitic stereotype of a Jewish cabal dishonestly seeking to bend the world to its will by the application of large amounts of money. What it is is a good way to turn critics of Israel into permanent enemies. Moreover, should the organization decide to help elect Rogers in Michigan, win or lose, it’s an excellent way to destroy what remains of Democratic support for the Jewish state.
Two weeks ago, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman enumerated supporters of a two-state solution in taking New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to task for repeatedly threatening to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu despite his lack of authority to do so.
“Imagine if Mamdani, instead of engaging in a useless stunt of publicly mulling the arrest of Netanyahu, convened all these Israeli, Palestinian, Arab and American advocates of two states for two peoples and then invited Netanyahu to address them. Let Bibi be the one to say: ‘No, I don’t want to have anything to do with Israeli, Palestinian, Arab and American advocates of two states for two peoples,’” Friedman wrote. “It would at least send the message to the Israeli center-right, center and left voters that the world doesn’t hate them, that the mayor of New York City isn’t out to get them and that all the international community wants is for Israelis and Palestinians to be constructive partners ready to explore the only realistic alternative to a forever war.”
Imagine if AIPAC, instead of using false pretenses to defeat even the mildest critics of the Israeli government, convened Jewish and non-Jewish advocates of two states for two peoples and then invited Netanyahu to address them. It at least could send the message to American voters that Zionism does not rule out justice and self-determination for Palestinians, that AIPAC has not become an agent of the Republican Party and that pro-Israel advocacy is consistent with the search for the only realistic alternative to a forever war.
