When members of a top body of the Democratic Party convened in New Orleans on April 9, they faced a simple choice: rein in the growing influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a pro-Israel lobbying group with deep pockets, within their party or maintain the status quo.
Voting for silence, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) – the executive body of one of the two mainstream US political parties – decided against naming and shaming AIPAC for spending tens of millions of dollars to help pro-Israel candidates win party nominations in every electoral cycle.
By voice vote, they rejected a symbolic resolution condemning AIPAC-linked “dark money,” a term used to denote election-related spending in which the exact donor source is not clearly disclosed.
The voice vote was apparently a procedural manoeuvre that spared members from casting recorded ballots.
The voice vote was apparently meant to save them from backlash by a growing section of the Democratic Party that wants to minimise Israeli influence in US politics, especially after Israel’s ever-expanding wars that have killed tens of thousands of people from Gaza to Lebanon and Iran.
Instead, the DNC passed a “blanket repudiation” of dark money without naming any specific group.
AIPAC is known for exerting an outsized influence on US politics by utilising massive campaign donations to candidates sympathetic to Israel.
Of the 365 candidates in the 2022 election cycle endorsed by AIPAC, about 98 percent ended up winning their general election races.
Despite DNC Chair Ken Martin vowing to “end the influence of dark money” in politics and “restoring power back to the people”, progressive voices among the Democrats saw it as something else: proof that senior party members remain addicted to AIPAC’s financial pipeline, even as a bulk of their own supporters demand campaign finance reform.
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Nadia Ahmad, a former DNC member from Florida, tells TRT World that the rejection of the vote for change in New Orleans reflects a “procedural choice” meant to allow committee members to escape individual accountability.
“That tells you they understand the position is out of step with Democratic voters, but feel they cannot say so publicly,” she says.
Polls show Democratic voters want aid to Israel conditional on its compliance with human rights in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and the many countries it is bombing at any point in time.
Several 2028 presidential contenders have already pledged to reject such funds, Ahmad says.
“Yet, the national committee declined to align itself with where its own voters already are,” she adds.
Broader resolutions against “dark money” pass easily, but resistance emerges as soon as demands for reform touch upon “relationships (that) senior figures have spent years cultivating” with big donors, she says.
The DNC vote comes as AIPAC-affiliated ‘Super PACs’ – legal entities set up specifically to raise and spend money to shape election outcomes – are pouring $22 million into various Democratic primaries in Illinois, backing pro-Israel candidates while attacking those who criticised Tel Aviv’s genocide in Gaza.
Ahmad says AIPAC-affiliated Super PACs sometimes outspend targeted candidates ten-to-one, flooding airwaves with ads on unrelated local issues.
“Voters never learn the funding is coming from a foreign-policy-aligned network,” she says.
For incumbents, the message is clear: criticise Israel and risk eight-figure spending by the opposition in the next election cycle. For challengers to incumbents, alignment with AIPAC unlocks millions in cash, she says.
That dynamic has only grown costlier for AIPAC as civilian casualties in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran have made unconditional alignment with Israel politically toxic in Democratic primaries, Ahmad notes.
Deep ties to big-donor networks
Matthew Grocholske, chair of the Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida, tells TRT World that AIPAC has spent millions of dollars to silence opposition to “endless wars and genocide”.