“Next week, AIPAC is set to spend at least $3,847,990 against me,” Abdul el Sayed complained during his successful Democratic Senate primary campaign in Michigan. “Why? Because [Haley Stevens] is more committed to the future of a foreign country than keeping your tax dollars here to provide schools and healthcare for you and your kids.”
Welcome to the falsehoods and radical biases of the Democratic Party of 2026, which has made Israel the defining issue in primary after primary, and for whom the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which is an organization of Americans exercising their constitutional right to petition the government, is depicted as a bogeyman responsible for everything wrong with America and more. Opposition to AIPAC is rapidly and absurdly becoming a Democratic Party litmus test, with candidates competing to prove who is most hostile to the organization and to the enormously valuable U.S.-Israel alliance it supports.
El Sayed has the formula down pat. Schools underfunded? Blame Israel and, by extension, its American Jewish supporters. Healthcare too expensive? Blame Israel and its American Jewish supporters. Housing unaffordable? Blame AIPAC, etc. “We should be using our tax dollars here to invest in healthcare here and education here,” el Sayed says, rather than sending money to Israel.
This is not merely dishonest but is also dangerous.
The federal government spent roughly $7 trillion last year. Under the normal U.S.-Israel security agreement, Israel receives $3.3 billion in military financing and another $500 million for joint missile-defense programs annually — $3.8 billion altogether, or roughly five one-hundredths of 1% of federal spending. And this country, for that, gets an indispensable international ally.
The United States disbursed more than $10 billion in foreign assistance to Ukraine in fiscal 2024. Yet somehow, Israel, getting one-third of that while working as a staunch ally in a war that America is actually fighting, is somehow to blame for low funding of domestic programs in Michigan. The supposed low funding, by the way, is also a falsehood, so El Sayed is begging the question with his lies.
Nor does the Left’s professed concern about “foreign influence” withstand scrutiny. Foreign governments and their affiliates, including China, Turkey, and wealthy Gulf States, spend heavily to influence American institutions through registered lobbyists, universities, think tanks, businesses, and other organizations. Yet none of that attracts anything close to the obsessive leftist focus on AIPAC.
This is especially strange, for AIPAC is not foreign, much though El Sayed and his ilk would like to think it so.
AIPAC is an American organization engaging in American politics, composed of American citizens funded exclusively by American citizens without direction from the Israeli government. Its purpose is straightforwardly to persuade the American government that a strong alliance with Israel serves American interests.
That is no more sinister than organized labor supporting politicians who favor unions or environmental groups supporting politicians who favor environmental regulation. Americans do not surrender their First Amendment rights because the foreign policy positions they advocate involve another country. Attacking AIPAC as though it were some sinister and malignant foreigner is, itself, an expression of the oldest bigotry of Jew hatred.
There are excellent reasons Americans should support Israel.
It is the Middle East’s only established democracy, a technologically advanced ally surrounded by hostile regimes and terrorist organizations. American and Israeli intelligence agencies cooperate against common enemies. Our militaries cooperate on cybersecurity, counterterrorism, drones, and missile defense. The U.S. and Israel jointly developed and financed missile defenses, including the Iron Dome, and the U.S. Army subsequently purchased two Iron Dome batteries specifically to defend deployed American forces against rockets, cruise missiles, and other threats.
The Democratic Party is free to debate whether that alliance remains worthwhile. It is free to oppose military assistance to Israel. It is even free to criticize AIPAC’s political spending.
But something much uglier is happening when Democrats portray an American organization, disproportionately supported by American Jews, as a foreign cabal buying politicians and stealing money from American children. They are painting a caricatured, antisemitic picture to horrify you.
EL SAYED DELIVERS ISLAMIC SOCIALISM TO MICHIGAN DEMOCRATS
The Democratic Socialists of America’s growing influence over Democratic primaries is pushing a major party toward a dangerous form of politics. It is treating ordinary political participation by pro-Israel Americans as uniquely corrupt or illegitimate.
History provides ample warnings about where politics goes when Jews are cast as the hidden explanation for wars, corruption, economic hardship, and failing institutions. Democrats should get off that path immediately. No good can come from following el Sayed’s lead and turning American Jews exercising their constitutional rights into the villains responsible for America’s problems.