Why This Swing-State Democrat Is Going After Netanyahu’s Most Powerful Ally in D.C.
“I’m poking the bear,” Rep. Mark Pocan said to Slate. Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Talha Bilal/Unsplash, Oliver Douliery/AFP via Getty Images and Brandon Morgan/Unsplash.
In an interview, Rep. Mark Pocan called the lobbying group AIPAC a “cancerous presence on our democracy and politics.”
AIPAC is one of the most fearsome entities in American politics. A multimillion-dollar influence machine at the heart of Washington politics, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is a lobbying firm that can single-handedly make or break political careers and turn elections. Both the top-ranking House Democrat, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, and the top-ranking Republican, Speaker Mike Johnson, counted the Israel lobby as their top donor in the 2022 cycle. (In that midterms cycle, pro-Israel lobbyist groups and individuals contributed over $30 million to congressional candidates.)
AIPAC, in particular, is vociferously supportive of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and willing to spend heavily to oppose any American politician it perceives as a critic. Thus, many politicians—and a lot of Democrats, who often bear the brunt of AIPAC’s anger—are fearful of being perceived as having crossed the Israel lobby in any way.
But not Rep. Mark Pocan, a progressive House member from Wisconsin. “I don’t give a fuck about AIPAC—period,” he said in a recent phone interview. “I think they’re a cancerous presence on our democracy and politics in general, and if I can be a surgeon, that’s great.” Over the past few days, following Pocan’s lead, a small number of congressional Democrats (and one congressional Republican) have openly accused the organization of spreading falsehoods and misrepresentations in its lobbying efforts.
It started after the House voted, on Oct. 25, to pass a resolution pledging unwavering support for Israel. This is already the de facto policy in Washington, and the resolution made no mention of the skyrocketing number of civilian casualties in Gaza. But the resolution set the stage for a subsequent vote on an additional $14 billion of military aid to Israel, afforded with zero conditions. Nine Democrats voted against the Oct. 25 resolution. (Pocan was not one of them.)
After the resolution vote, AIPAC posted on X (formerly Twitter) and accused several American representatives, including Pocan, of “trying to keep Hamas in power.”
Pocan fired back: “@AIPAC is good at not telling the truth.”
The U.S. sends “BILLIONS annually to assist Israel,” he wrote. “Pocket change to feed millions of Palestinians who live in an open air prison [in] Gaza, who are not Hamas. We don’t support Hamas. We just don’t support killing kids which it seems you do.”
A few days later, New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who AIPAC has long opposed, was also name-checked by AIPAC as a traitor. She posted on X: “AIPAC endorsed scores of Jan 6th insurrectionists. They are no friend to American democracy. They are one of the more racist and bigoted PACs in Congress as well, who disproportionately target members of color. They are an extremist organization that destabilizes US democracy.”
Even one Republican got in on the action. After AIPAC went after Republican Rep. Thomas Massie for voting against the Oct. 25 resolution, calling him antisemitic, he posted: “This baseless smear is meant to intimidate me into voting to send $14+ billion of your money to a foreign country.”
Ocasio-Cortez and Massie stopped there; Pocan has continued to engage in a combative online back-and-forth. This is risky, to say the least. AIPAC’s website boasts that 98 percent of the candidates it has backed have won their elections, and super PACs affiliated with the group have already gone on the offensive against congressional critics of Israel, booking six-figure ad buys targeting Democrats like Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, and Summer Lee. The group has publicly courted primary challengers for those members and other members of the group of representatives known as the Squad, according to Jewish Insider. And retribution has been swift and commonplace. As the Washington Post reported, “a third of the nearly 20 pro-Israel resolutions and bills proposed by lawmakers in the weeks since Hamas’s attack have focused on condemning Israel’s critics—including protesters and university students.”
That hasn’t slowed Pocan. “The reason I’m poking the bear is because they’ve become a Trojan bear. AIPAC at least pretended to be bipartisan when I first got [to Congress]. Now they’re basically a wholly-owned subsidiary of the GOP,” he told me. “It’s time to call them out for what they are—a front group for conservative policy here in the U.S.—instead of being afraid of them.”