In response to the news that AIPAC’s SuperPAC, United Democracy Project, is spending over $700,000 to help Republican Mike Doyle defeat PA-12 Democratic congressional nominee Summer Lee, J Street’s National Political Director Laura Birnbaum released the following statement:
“At a critical moment for American democracy, with election denial, antisemitism and far-right extremism on the rise, AIPAC continues to make clear that its top political priority is to target and defeat progressive Democrats.
After spending nearly $30 million in Democratic primaries on ads that claimed to care about democratic values and priorities, this right-wing group isn’t lifting a finger to defend democracy itself from candidates willing to overturn elections and undermine belief in our core institutions. Instead, UDP is making its only expenditures in the General Election to target Democrats. In PA-12, they are spending money to help a Republican win a historically blue seat in Pennsylvania.
Around the country, AIPAC continues to endorse and fundraise for 109 Republican Members of Congress who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election on January 6. While attacking principled progressives like Summer Lee, they proudly support MAGA extremists like Rep. Clay Higgins – who yesterday hatefully mocked Speaker Pelosi and her husband following the vicious attack on Paul Pelosi’s life by an antisemitic white nationalist.
AIPAC’s actions make clear that they really mean it when they say that nothing matters to them other than unquestioning support for Israel — not the survival of American democracy, nor the core values and concerns of the majority of Jewish Americans.
By spending unprecedented sums to impact the outcome of Democratic primaries, only to abandon the party in a historically vital general election, they have made clear that their only agenda is enforcing a harmful purity test against pro-Israel, pro-peace progressives.
All of us who are concerned about the survival of American democracy — but particularly pro-Israel Americans for whom they claim to speak — should make clear that AIPAC does not speak for them.”
The overwhelming majority of Democratic voters, Jewish voters and pro-Israel voters support justice, freedom, democracy and equality -- for Israelis and Palestinians, and here at home. As AIPAC’s actions have made clear, they do not share these goals and values. Help show they do not speak for us.