AIPAC, J Street, going head-to-head in five primary races

WASHINGTON – Ever since J Street was established in 2007, a clear distinction has existed between political candidates supported by the progressive Jewish group and the bipartisan pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC. Last December, AIPAC announced it would launch a political action committee – a PAC, moving to directly fund political campaigns.

Thus, as the primaries are underway, the two groups find themselves for the first time contributing to hundreds of candidates across the country.

In five of those races, AIPAC and J Street will compete headto-head in the primaries to the congressional seat in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Texas, North Carolina and Maryland.

MD-04 (Donna Edwards against Glenn Ivey)

Progressive candidate Donna Edwards, supported by J Street, is running to win back the seat she held from 2008 to 2017.

interview with the Jewish Insider earlier this year, Edwards said she wants to see a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “I just always leaned toward what is going to provide Israel security, but also engage Israel with its neighbors so that the region can exist in peace and stability,” said Edwards. But such an outcome now ”feels so much more distant for a whole host of reasons,” she told JI.

“I think I voted for every Israel security appropriations bill that ever came in front of me. I mean, I’d have to go back and check, but I’m pretty sure that’s true. I don’t really see that changing,” Edwards told JI.

However, the publication noted that “she did not vote in favor of all the legislation backed by AIPAC-aligned advocates. She voted against a 2013 bill that would have strengthened sanctions on Iran.”

AIPAC, on the other hand, is supporting Ivey, an attorney who is a partner at the law firm of Ivey & Levetown. He previously served as the state’s attorney for Prince George’s County from 2002 to 2011.

In an interview with the Insider, Ivey voiced opposition to

placing conditions on US foreign aid to Israel because “my sense of it is that it’s aimed at sort of trying to leverage some components of negotiations with the Palestinians about a two-state solution,” Ivey said. “I’m in favor of a two-state solution. But I think we have to allow the parties to negotiate that for themselves. And I want to be careful about us trying to do too much to twist the arms, to force one side or the other to do it a particular way.”

TX-28 (Jessica Cisneros against Henry Cuellar)

Cuellar the incumbent is supported by AIPAC. Last December, he led a bipartisan letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken sounding the alarm on Iran’s nuclear advancements. The letter urges the State Department “to hold Iran accountable for their non-cooperation with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors and their failure to comply with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty obligations.”

On a different occasion he tweeted: “Israel is not an apartheid state. Full stop. These inaccuracies incite antisemitic behavior against the Jewish people. Lies that incite violence, but do nothing to help the Palestinian people. Let’s work together, not tear each other down.”

The J Street Action Fund, announced in February that it made a $100,000 targeted digital ad buy to support the candidacy of human rights attorney Jessica Cisneros and oppose Rep. Henry Cuellar “in the critical primary election for Texas’ 28th Congressional District.”

“With this campaign, we aim to make clear that Jessica Cisneros is a fresh, principled voice who will fight for the true needs and values of her district, while her opponent Rep. Cuellar has a repeated history of putting his own personal interests and outof-touch, conservative views ahead of the people he was elected to represent,” said Logan Bayroff, J Street’s Vice President of Communications.

“Rep. Cuellar has repeatedly aligned himself with foreign policy hawks and opposed a critical measure designed to prevent former president Trump from taking us into a disastrous war with Iran. That’s not the kind of principled leadership we need to see in Congress,” J Street said in a statement.

Marshal Wittmann, AIPAC spokesperson, said that AIPACPAC “is proud to support candidates who will advance the US-Israel relationship as members of Congress. In these races, there is a clear contrast between pro-Israel candidates who will stand by our democratic ally and their opponents who will not.”

MI-11 (Andy Levin against Haley Stevens)

This race is a unique one since it will feature two members of Congress: progressive Levin and centrist Stevens, who will face each other because Michigan lost a district following the 2020 census.

NBC called the race “a proxy war over Israel policy and other ideological differences,” noting that AIPAC raised nearly $300,000 in contributions for Stevens in the first three months of the year, while J Street says it has raised some $200,000 for Levin.

David Victor, a former president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, wrote to pro-Israel donors in the Detroit area that Levin is “arguably the most corrosive member of Congress to the US-Israel relationship.”

Carolina’s bipartisan anti-BDS bill. Pro-Israel leaders stand with our democratic ally and oppose the anti-Israel, anti-peace BDS campaign.”