Batya Ungar-Sargon
Spiked, June 26, 2024
“Like most of America’s cultural battles, this one is a class battle in disguise. It’s a symptom of a much larger divide in the US between an over-credentialed elite and America’s working class.”
New York has handed a stinging defeat to congressman Jamaal Bowman, a member of the ‘Squad’ of young, progressive House Democrats. Tuesday’s primary election gave Bowman’s challenger, George Latimer, a 60-40 victory over the incumbent. The narrative you will hear from the left that dominates the mainstream media is that Bowman was defeated by the deep coffers of the ‘Israel lobby’ and by American Jews who opposed his unwavering support for Palestinians. According to this narrative, the Democratic Party is split over Israel. Old-school, establishment Democrats like Latimer and President Joe Biden still support Israel, but a younger generation of voters and politicians, like the Squad, include the Palestinians in their vision of a more just world.
There’s only one problem with this narrative: it’s nonsense.
Yes, it’s true that a super PAC affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) spent a record $ 15 million on Latimer, making his race with Bowman the most expensive House primary in American history. Yet Bowman was already trailing Latimer by 17 points back in April before AIPAC made a single ad buy. Contrary to what the left believes, money in politics just does not correlate with victory in such a simple way (just ask Nikki Haley).
It’s also true that American Jews have been disgusted by Bowman’s commentary around Israel. But while the left portrays him as simply a warrior for Palestinians and for peace in Gaza, his ‘advocacy’ has included dismissing reports of Hamas’s mass rape of Israeli women on 7 October as ‘propaganda’, using ‘Zionist’ as a slur and referring to Israel as ‘another settler-colonial project’. He has also turned American Jews into a bogeyman – even blaming them for rising anti-Semitism. This isn’t advocacy for Palestinians. It reflects a particular kind of elite, woke mindset applied to the Middle East. … [To read the full article, click here]