Israel, AIPAC and Difficult Questions for Democrats

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In this year's midterm elections, APEC, the pro-Israel Lobbing Group, has spent a record amount of money mostly in democratic primaries to either house candidates or support candidates, based on a changing definition of what it means to support Israel. Today, my colleague, Johnson Moller, 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 29th. Jonathan Moller, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. Jonathan, the relationship between 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 politics for many years and covered it for the New York Times, and so we wanted to turn to you in this moment, understand how you are seeing and thinking about all of this. I have been covering the U.S. Israel relationship 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 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 someone 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 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, and 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, APAC has basically become synonymous with Israel. Right. When you see people talking or debating APAC, what they're essentially debating is US support

for Israel. Exactly. APAC 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 APAC 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 ask 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 US Israel relationship, really become front and center.

And this debate about the role that money should play in our politics. Exactly. It's really irremarcable political moment. And it's one that APAC help create, probably unintentionally. It's really backed itself into a corner, which is forced Democrats to take aside in these

big debates.

“And it's gotten to this point because of a series of key decisions that APAC made since”

it's found out. So I want to talk about the history of APAC and how we've gotten here. Let's go back to the beginning when APAC was formed. Sort of tell us about that origin story. So APAC was founded really just a few years after the founding of the State of Israel back

in 1948. And I really had a simple mission, the idea was to defend and protect and strengthen the US Israel relationship, which was a fairly simple thing to do back then because we were

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 APAC 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, APAC 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 APAC. Having said that, the very deliberately courted support on both sides of the political

aisle, both Republican and Democratic politicians would go on APAC supported trips to Israel. They both received campaign contributions from APAC. So APAC, you know, now we think of them as incredibly polarizing force in American politics.

“It's important to remember that they were once actually a really unifying force in American”

politics. APAC was something that both Republicans and Democrats could agree on. It was truly a bipartisan group. Then she tells it at a very high level, what was the pitch that APAC was making to the US? 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. APAC could say, and did say, that America's interests 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.

“In turn, what does APAC 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 by 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's stage, with the U.S. really firmly

backing Israel for decades and decades. So it's very interesting to note that APAC 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

dust ups between Israel and the United States, and APAC 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 in tell 2015.

“In 2015, something really kind of seismic happened for the U.S. Israel relationship and”

in turn for APAC, and that is today, after two years of negotiations. The United States, together, were 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 happen, but Obama was going ahead with it anyway. And so in this moment, the Republicans in Congress, the Speaker has invited these really Prime Minister to address a joint session of Congress.

Invite BB to come speak before Congress. The general protocol for this kind of thing is for Congress to consult with the White House. 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 BB 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 Netanyahu. He comes to Congress, my friends, for over a year, 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 a pack in a really difficult situation, because now they're faced with

is really going after the President of the United States, really undermining him and they have to make a choice.

“I mean, are we going to side with Israel or are we going to side with the President?”

And they chose Israel. They agreed with BB's take on it and they tried to defeat it. So I understand the Netanyahu was invited by Republicans. It was an insult in some way to the President of the time Barack Obama. But what are we seeing coming out of this?

Yeah, what we're seeing is that there had never been a moment like this.

When the United States went forward with a major policy shift that was going to have a major impact on Israel, that Israel was opposed to. So for APAC, which had always been able to support both Israel and the United States, because Israel in the United States interests always seemed to be perfectly cleanly aligned. Suddenly, America and Israel's interests seemed to diverge.

They split and APAC had to line up with one side or the other, and they lined up with Israel. So that was the first big inflection point in 2015. The next one came in 2018 when we saw the election of the squad. So this was AOC. What people are starting to see, at least in the occupation of Palestine,

is increasing crisis of humanitarian condition.

“This was Rashida Talib, will you vote against U.S. military aid for Israel?”

Absolutely, for me, U.S. aid should be leveraged. This was Elon Omar. We think of Israel as the only democracy in the Middle East. And as such, we have to make sure we're holding it to that standard. This was a group of progressive lawmakers who were willing to say things about Israel,

critical things about Israel.

They've support the movement known as BDS, which calls for a boycott of Israel until property is returned to Palestinians. And to sort of begin to try to redefine the American Israel relationship. I mean, no one had ever gone there in this way before. It had isolated critics of Israel elected to Congress before,

but you definitely never had a block of them in Congress. And especially ones who were young, popular, and progressive. This was going to be a problem for AAPAC. And so the question becomes, what is AAPAC going to do

“about the arrival in Congress of this block of outspoken critics of Israel?”

And what if this is just the beginning? So what does AAPAC decide to do? Because at this point in the story, it sounds like AAPAC is basically identified both a near-term problem with these new lawmakers. But also, it's identified maybe a longer-term issue that the squad might be foreshadowing,

just this general shift of opinions on Israel. So how do they respond after these folks are elected to Congress? Yes, so up until this point, AAPAC had been steadfast in its approach to U.S. elections, which was basically to encourage its members to make individual donations to candidates who supported Israel on both sides of the aisle.

And those donations were limited by law to roughly a few thousand dollars per cycle. So relatively small amounts. Yeah, I mean, they can add up, but we're still talking about limited amounts of money. But then, as I said, the squad is elected in 2018. And then a couple more members are elected in 2020, Jamal Bowman and Cory Bush,

who joined in the criticism of Israel. And so AAPAC sees this new threat, and it decides that the gloves have to come off. Like small donations are not enough anymore. So what happens is a few years later, before the 2022 mid-terms, AAPAC makes a huge, really important decision.

And that is that they decide they are going to create their own super PAC, which they call the United Democracy Project. Not clearly pro-Israel, just to say in that name. Right, the name does not communicate that it is a pro-Israel PAC. And this is significant, because this will allow them to steer really unlimited amounts

of money into local races, into congressional races. And the political contact here is really important, because we are now in the post-citizens united decision era, when suddenly it has become possible through these super PACs to give unlimited sums to political campaigns.

And AAPAC, if it wants to continue to be a powerful force in American politics, as it

has always been. And if it wants to deal with what it sees as this coming threat of the real anti-Israel current in Congress, they need to get into this game. They need to get into the big money game. And so they set up this PAC for the 2022 mid-terms, and they got to work spending money.

So tell us what that means, Jonathan, like how do we see that playing out in elections? Yeah. So in 2022, they sort of dip their toes in.

But there's also the dark money side of it, which is you can give this money, and you can

“pay for ads that actually don't have anything to do with the issue your group is interested”

in. So in the case of AAPAC, what we have seen is that they can target an anti-Israel candidate, or target a pro-Israel candidate, they want to support. So they can dump money into advertising that has absolutely nothing to do with Israel. They're taking away our rights.

Kevin Mullen is fighting back. You would see in 2022 an ad that endorsed a Democratic candidate, or credited a Democratic candidate, for instance, with supporting reproductive rights. Kevin Mullen will work to guarantee all women have the right to make their own medical decisions. A pro-choice ad, and you would have no idea that it was paid for by AAPAC's super PACs.

A guarantee the right to choose, to vote, to earn a livable wage, fighting for our democratic values, Adam Oliefer Congress, UDP is responsible for the content of this ad. Importantly, they did something else in the 2022 mid-terms that really helped fuel our perception of AAPAC as a polarizing force in politics, and what they did is they endorsed more than 100 candidates who had supported Trump's effort to overturn the election in 2020.

So this was really a slap in the face to a lot of Democratic American Jews.

People who had always felt aligned with Israel and therefore with AAPAC suddenly felt like,

"Whoa, you are choosing what you perceive to be Israel's interests over American democracy." That was a kind of a shocking, single-issue position that AAPAC took that really earned them a lot of critics and future enemies. And how did AAPAC justify this at the time? Well, to AAPAC, their whole raison d'etre, the whole reason why they exist, is to defend

the American Israel relationship, to protect America's relationship with Israel. And their view of the matter was it didn't matter how these politicians treated the election, what matter it is, what would they do in Congress when a vote came up that was relevant to Israel? Would they vote in Israel's interests or not?

And they determined that they would vote in Israel's interests and therefore they were going to support them regardless. Even if that means supporting election deniers. Exactly. I just want to point out that feels like a very different strategy than AAPAC had used before.

Yeah, they're assuming a fully partisan, aggressive, money-based posture. I mean, they're throwing their weight around, they're throwing money around, and they're influencing American politics in a much more direct way. And they're having a lot of success getting pro-Israel candidates elected. And then, of course, something world-changing happens.

And that is October 7th, 2023. Right.

“And I think a lot of people remember that after October 7th when Hamas led an attack on Israel”

that killed more than 1,000 people, there was a brief moment of bipartisan support for Israel in Congress. Yes, there was, and for a little while, it was almost like we were back where we once were. We were kind of back in time when there was widespread support and sympathy for Israel. Israel was again the victim, I guess you might say, because the narrative in preceding

years had started to shift. And that's because Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, especially in the West Bank, have been attracting a growing chorus of criticism. So in the eyes of some Americans, they started to become the perpetrator rather than the victim. And after October 7th, they were the victims again.

But we all know what happens next. Israel goes into Gaza, they cause a lot of destruction. They kill tens of thousands of people, including civilians. And popular opinion starts to turn against Israel. And so for APAC, this is a new kind of threat.

And not only a new threat, I mean, a really kind of urgent one, because there really was a degree of animosity toward Israel in America, in American politics, that we really hadn't seen before. And it is, in many ways, the manifestation of what they had feared back in 2018, when

the squad first arrived in Congress.

They had feared that there was going to be a kind of a building, anti-Israel movement in Washington. Well, now we seem to be getting all of the signs that that wasn't becoming. We'll be right back. I'm Julian Barnes, I'm an intelligence reporter at The New York Times.

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and that we give a complete story to our readers.

If the New York Times was not reporting these stories, some of them might never come to

light. If you want to support this kind of work, you can do that by subscribing to The New York Times. So Jonathan, once it becomes clear that the tide is turning against Israel, how does APAC decide to respond? Yeah, so APAC goes into complete overdrive.

Small Bowman voted against condemning Hamas's brutal attack. He supported a resolution calling the founding of Israel a catastrophe. They spend $120 million in the 2024 election cycle, a staggering amount of money. When Biden really needs her, Cory Bush just isn't there. The facts.

Cory Bush has her own agenda and it's hurting St. Louis. UDP is responsible for the content of this ad. And they rack up two big wins. They defeat Cory Bush and Jamal Bowman, both members of the squad. And to APAC, the squad really is kind of ground zero for anti-Israel sentiment in Washington.

And of course, that doesn't go unnoticed by the candidates who are unseated by APAC.

We should be outraged when a super PAC of dark money can spend $20 million to pray was people

when they're believing something that isn't true. We should be outraged among them. They're furious and they call out APAC very explicitly in their concession speeches. And I think it's at this moment when you really begin to see some Democrats on the left trying to paint APAC as this boogey man in American politics.

“I think I want to pause for a second because I think it is important that we address an”

elephant in the room or perhaps several elephants in the room, which is that even talking about APAC and its support for pro-Israel candidates has brought up in the course of this conversation. A lot of topics that I think are fodder for well-known anti-Semitic tropes, like we are talking about Jewish people and money. We're talking about Jewish people, exerting political power. We're talking about an idea that there's a group of Jewish people who prioritize foreign

interests over the interest of the United States. So I'm wondering how all of that has played out as APAC has really tried to show its muscle in these different election cycles. Yeah, you're right to bring it up and it's a really complicated and sensitive issue. I think there's no question that APAC is willing a lot of influence in American politics,

like full stop. It's measurable, it's measurable with the money they're spending. It is indeed measurable with dollar signs. At the same time, there is also no question that APAC's role in American politics has drawn a lot more criticism than the role of plenty of other advocacy groups.

It is also clear to me anyway that there is a degree of anti-Semitism behind at least some of the criticism of APAC that there are certain obvious tropes here of Jews and money and political influence that go to the core of the sort of anti-Semitic ideology going back centuries. And you see this unfolding on the left. You also see it unfolding on the right with Tucker Carlson and other APAC critics who talk

about foreign influence in American politics, which often feels like a dog whistle for Jewish influence in American politics.

“And so this is really difficult stuff to kind of untangle, but it's really important”

and it's particularly important because this is all happening at a moment when anti-Semitism is unequivocally rising all around the world in really like dangerous and scary ways. So when the conversation in America begins to tip into like all the Jewish influence in American politics, there is real reason for concern.

And APAC, which of course is the first to say that criticizing APAC is anti-Semitic, is not

always wrong. I mean, there is clearly a kind of a degree of anti-Semitic sentiment behind at least some criticisms of APAC. It sounds like a few things can kind of be true at once here. APAC is having a significant impact on American elections with big donations and it is also

perhaps under more scrutiny than other influential donors and single interest groups. And the war in Gaza, the changing political tides has opened the door to criticism of Israel that perhaps was a non-starter before and also opened the door to a lot of anti-Semitic rhetoric

I think that's exactly right. I mean, APAC's actions and right or wrong, their actions

“have provided an opening, honestly, for bad actors, but in particular in a sub-waring sense”

for people who are not just criticizing Israel, but who are criticizing Jews and Jewish influence. You know, I think Jonathan would be helpful just to understand whether that argument has any merit to it, to compare the spending and influence of APAC to perhaps other single issue super PACs. So in other words, does APAC actually give more money than other single

issue super PACs? Yeah, that's a really important point. I mean, APAC is definitely up there, but it actually gives comparable amounts to the crypto lobby and the AI lobby. And we're seeing some backlash against those PACs in some recent election cycles, but APAC definitely gets the majority of the heat.

“So I think that brings us to this year and the 2026 mid-terms talked to us Jonathan about”

the role that we've seen APAC play so far and what the response to their role has been. Yeah, so what's happened in 2026 has really been kind of fascinating because APAC has again gone out and decided to spend big in various races. But what has happened is that APAC has had to shift its strategy. And what they've had to do in 2026 is because so many moderate Democrats are now starting to question America's unconditional support for Israel.

APAC has had to, or has at least decided to, target moderate Democrats. Moderate Democrats, when many cases consider themselves to be supporters of Israel, consider themselves to be pro-Israel. And that has made APAC even more polarizing. But why alienate people who have expressed a lot of support for Israel, especially at a time when that support is waning? Like, what is the thinking behind that strategy?

Yeah, I mean, APAC has created what is essentially a kind of a basic litness test for what it means to be pro-Israel. And that litness test is if you question unconditional American military support for Israel, you are not pro-Israel enough. So in creating this very strict litness test, it sounds like APAC has actually expanded the pool of lawmakers that it's spending against. So where have we seen that dynamic

play out so far in these midterms? Yeah, the first race that APAC really got involved in in this cycle was the Democratic primary for House seat in New Jersey. And they targeted a representative there named Tom Malanowski. And Tom Malanowski is like, by no means a squad

“member. He is by no means a progressive. I believe in Israel's right to exist and defend”

itself as a Jewish and Democratic state, particularly after the atrocity of October 7th. He also is a believer in defending America's commitment to defend Israel's security. I had a perfect pro-Israel voting record in Congress. In fact, he had angered some people by refusing to call Israel's war in Gaza genocide. He would not use the G-word. But

he also has been very critical of Israel's response to October 7th. And he thinks that

the U.S. should be making kind of case by case decisions on military aid to Israel. So no longer unconditional. That sounds very key here. Exactly. He wants to place conditions. He wants to consider every allocation that the United States makes to Israel's military. Tom Malanowski says members of Congress shouldn't be allowed to trade stocks, but in Congress he cached in on COVID-related stocks. So APAC's super PAC spent over $2 million and go over $2.3

million to defeat him. ISIS deportation force is out of control. Tom Malanowski voted with Trump to increase funding. And they did so by running ads that were not explicitly about Israel, but by attacking Malanowski on other issues that they thought would be disqualifying in the eyes of democratic primary voters. We just can't trust Tom Malanowski. UDP is responsible for the content of this ad. Malanowski was completely outraged by this, especially the Isad,

which landed right at the time that two American citizens were shot and killed by federal agents in Minnesota. I'm here at an anti-Israeli where I just finished giving a speech and we just found out, believe it or not, that a dark money group has put an ad on television accusing me of supporting

ice. And you let his voters know what was going on. This is the first time they've gone

after someone who has mainstream views on Israel, and the ad itself is a despicable and unforgivable life. But in this instance, APAC's efforts completely backfired. They did succeed in defeating Malanowski, but the candidate, they were back and also lost. And instead, the nominee was a progressive candidate who was way to Malanowski's left on Israel. Wow, so they got a candidate that was even more hostile to the cause they were trying to champion in this race. Exactly. Which makes me

wonder why APAC would even take the kind of risk to begin with. Like I understand that Malanowski didn't pass this new litmus test, but it's still seems really risky to go after moderate Democrats.

a member of the squad, because he's a moderate Democrat who is still yes supportive of Israel,

“but is starting to very openly question America's unconditional support for Israel. So when you”

have moderates, and he's by no means the only one who were beginning to look critically at the U.S. Israel relationship, something that was really unheard of, not that many years ago. That is a sign that things are actually like getting serious for APAC, that they really have to watch out, because this is not just a phenomenon on the far left. This is becoming a phenomenon among moderate Democrats. And so it's almost a bigger threat to APAC, that moderate Democrats are starting to sound

much more critical of Israel than they had in the past. And so they need to do everything they

can to keep them out of office. Give us another example, Jonathan, of how you've seen this play out. Yeah, well another kind of amazing example, which sort of speaks to the role that APAC is trying to play in this election in ways that it's backfiring, is a house race that was in the suburbs of Chicago, where APAC targeted a guy named Daniel Bess, who had been the mayor of the city of Evanston.

“This like Melanowski is a sort of more moderate Democrat who has raised some questions about”

America's unconditional support for Israel, but is still not far left by any means, and certainly not anti-Israel. And is in fact the grand son of Holocaust survivors. This has strong connections to Israel, has family in Israel. And he got kind of a whiff of the fact that APAC was potentially going to get involved in his race in Illinois. And so, you know, he went to APAC and said, listen, don't do this. I am willing to speak to you guys anytime, if I'm if I'm

elected, my door is always open to APAC, we can discuss any Israel-related issue. And APAC said to him,

what we need you to do if you want us to back out of this race or to not get involved in the race is to support unrestricted military aid for Israel. And Bess said, I'm not going to do that. And so, it became clear to him at that moment that APAC was going to get involved in his race. To try to defeat him, to try to defeat him. And so, what he did at that point is that he pulled voters in his district and asked them how they felt about APAC. And the numbers that came

back were 51% of those pulled said they viewed APAC unfavorably. And only 17% said they viewed APAC favorably. I'm Daniel Bess and I'm running for Congress in the Ninth District of Illinois. So, armed with that information, Bess decides to actually campaign on the fact that he's being attacked by APAC, that he was in other words, like the anti-APAC candidate. They're calling me anti-Israel because I don't think starvation should be used as a weapon of war,

because I don't think the U.S. should have been bankrolling the bombs that B.B. was dropping on Palestinian civilians. And he really leans into his Jewish identity as part of this. They want to scare Jewish people like me out of criticizing these really government. They want to silence us. But listen, I criticize these really government exactly because Israel is so important to me. Israel was a safe haven for my grandparents after they survived

“the Holocaust. I think it gives him an opportunity to both kind of demonize APAC in a sense,”

but also speak to voters about his own evolving understanding of Israel and the American Israel relationship. APAC in their allies know that it's exactly my connection to Israel that makes me so dangerous to their hard-line right-wing agenda. And so that was successful for Bess. He wins the Democratic primary. So, there was a kind of a growing recognition that it was good politics to publicly distance yourself from APAC and even potentially

tar your opponent as being supported by APAC. Right. Well, to that point, the next big test of this coming up is next week in Michigan, the Democratic primary for the Senate seat there. So, just tell us, what are you paying attention to in that race? Yeah, I mean, we're seeing their in Michigan a race where APAC is spending more money than they have

ever spent before in a single race, something approaching $30 million, which they have spent

supporting Haley Stevens, who is a moderate blue-collar, pro-manufacturing Democrat, a kind of old school Michigan Democrat, who is running against Abdul El Saidad, who is the son of Egyptian immigrants, far to the left, very opposed to USAID Israel, very vocal about what he describes as a genocide in Gaza, has really turned Israel into a kind of a central plank of his campaign there. And has also seized not just on the Israel side of this, but the kind of corrupting influence of

money and dark money in American politics and sort of turning APAC into a symbol of the kind of corrupting influence of money in politics. And how is Haley Stevens approaching the fact that she is getting so much support from APAC? Like, is she trying to run against that, given the other examples that you've laid out? Yeah, no, she's taken a different approach toward APAC and really even toward Israel. I mean, she has criticized Netanyahu in the past, but she has embraced APAC,

Jewish. But I think in general, you can sort of see her as more of an exception to the rule that's

come to define many of these democratic primaries. And if El Saidad wins the primary, I mean, he has a chance of winning the seat in the general election in November for sure. And if he does, he'll be a sitting US democratic senator calling for the end of USA to Israel, which is definitely not something we've ever seen before. What is so interesting about this Jonathan is that we are arriving in this moment, not just because of October 7, not just because of our hyperpartisan time,

but also because of a series of decisions that APAC has made over the years. That has helped to lead us to where we are today. This organization that started as a bipartisan organization to support US Israel relations, it has now become one of the causes for that relationship deteriorating. And so I wonder, where do you think that leaves APAC? Doesn't seem like these dynamics are going away

“anytime soon. So what are the options for it going forward?”

So APAC is really at a crossroads right now. What it could do, and what it might do, is begin to recognize that there isn't necessarily a single litmus test for being pro Israel. They there should be room in the kind of pro Israel tent for politicians on both sides of the aisle, Republicans and Democrats, who are willing to criticize Israel, have real questions about this Israeli government, about the actions of this Israeli government, and want to scrutinize

the military and financial support we give the state of Israel, but still support Israel. In other words, APAC could come to a place where they begin to recognize that they can't stop this. They cannot prevent the shifting of the tides that's happening right now. They have to acknowledge it.

You know, and the reality is that the way things are moving right now in American politics,

“if they want to remain relevant, APAC may not really have a choice, because this same shift”

that we've been talking about on the left is also happening albeit a lot more slowly in very different dynamics on the right. It is not hard to imagine that in the future there could be a race with two candidates who are both critics of Israel, and APAC is going to have to, if it wants to remain relevant, is going to have to reconsider what it means to be pro Israel. Jonathan Mueller, thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

This week, President Trump appeared to lose his patience with Israel and its leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who met with the President of the White House on Tuesday. ahead of that meeting, Trump told reporters that without his support for the war against Iran, Israel would not have survived. If I didn't get involved, Trump claimed Israel would have been terminated. We'll be right back.

“Here's what else you need to know today. It was a man who gave America the full measure of his”

good and mighty heart until that heart itself just gave out. President Trump utilized South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham in a memorial service at the National Cathedral on Tuesday, Hailing Graham who died this month, the age of 71, has quote one of the great figures in Senate history. He went out of the peak of his career. The top of his game is a legend that everyone of us, many of us here today, blessed to know him and the friend that none of us will ever

forget. The two men didn't always agree on policy, which the President referenced in his remarks,

particularly when it came to foreign affairs. He was extremely hawkish. I will tell you, he never so war that he didn't like. The Fox News host Sean Hannity also spoke, saying the Graham was often unfairly characterized as a warmonger. Lindsey desperately wanted and talked to the President about a lasting peace in the Middle East. Some of the foreign dignitaries whose causes Graham championed as a Senator were in attendance, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,

of Israel, and President Vladimir Zelensky of Ukraine. And emergency workers race to find survivors of a powerful 6.8 magnitude earthquake in southwest from Japan on Tuesday. The quake, which had around 430 pm local time, ignited fires and damaged buildings. At least one person has been confirmed dead and dozens more are injured or missing. Today's episode was produced by Ricky Novetsky, and Chris Benderev, with help from Olivia Nat. It was edited by Rachel Quester with help from

Patricia Willens, and contains music by Marion Lazano, Dan Powell, Roenie Misto, and Alicia Betitu.

That's it for the Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.

“I'm Gilbert Cruz. This week on the Book Review podcast, I think it's time to talk about some”

of our best books of the year, Parent the See so far. It is the platonic ideal of a novel.

We are introduced to the most unbelievable cast of characters.

“metaphorically jumping on a sofa right now. What I think makes this a great book, a”

best book is. Listen to the book review wherever you get your podcasts. It's majestic.