By Morton A. Klein and Chairman Mark S. Levenson, Esq.

In our view, AIPAC made a serious mistake when it retracted and apologized for its recent ads expressing the accurate concern that radical, Jew-hating Israelophobes in the Democratic Party are infecting and influencing an alarming number of other Democratic Party members to become more hostile to Israel and even Jews. AIPAC should rescind its retraction, and resume its discontinued ad campaign to urge Democratic representatives to support Israel.

Pro-Israel organizations must do everything possible to assure that our friends in both parties remain our friends. This includes calling out and strongly opposing the dangerous influences and extremely worrisome trends that we are seeing today.

Less than two weeks ago, Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (MI)—who associates with a top Hezbollah supporter and anti-Israel terrorists—retweeted a vicious, completely fabricated, anti-Semitic blood libel. Tlaib’s retweet falsely accused innocent Jews (whom the tweet falsely called “a herd of violent #Israelisettlers”) of kidnapping, assaulting, and executing an Arab boy and throwing him into a water well. This blood libel is virtually the same as the blood libels used to incite deadly anti-Jewish pogroms throughout the Middle Ages.  

Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), also known as AOC, spread similar anti-Semitic blood libels, and directly justified and incited violence against Jews by declaring that Palestinian-Arabs have “no choice but to riot” against Jews in her July 2019 “Ebro in the Morning” radio interview. During the same interview, AOC also falsely claimed that Israel denies Palestinians access to clean water – an anti-Semitic “Jews poison the water” medieval-style blood libel; and “absolutely” agreed with the radio show host’s false characterization of the Jewish people as “white supremacist Jews,” and the host’s false statements calling Israel “very, very unjust” and “very, very, criminal.” 

Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar (MN) is infamous for falsely accusing Israel/Jews of “evil doings” and oppression, falsely calling Israel “racist” and an “apartheid” state, falsely accusing Jews of buying Congress, and of dual loyalty, and is sponsoring legislation to promote anti-Israel boycotts, which compares anti-Israel boycotts to anti-Nazi boycotts.

Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson (GA) called Jews living in the historic Jewish homeland “termites.”

And much more.

The fact that House Democrats have continued to tolerate and refuse to take action against such vile anti-Semitism in their midst is deeply concerning in and of itself.  

But, to use AIPAC’s term, it is apparent that these vile, unchecked expressions of Jew-hatred in Congress have also had “insidious” effects.For instance:

• 107 Democrats—almost one half of House Democrats—signed a letter wrongly condemning President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for correctly acknowledging that it is legal for Jews to live in the lawful, historic Jewish homelands of Judea-Samaria and eastern Jerusalem. 

• In late 2019, more than 120 Democratic Congress members, including presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren (MA) and Amy Klobuchar (MN), wrote letters praising the Council on American Islamic Relations – an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial, involved in funneling money to Hamas.  

To put this into perspective: A decade ago, alarm bells went off when 54 Democratic Congress persons signed the infamous “Gaza 54” letter wrongly condemning Israel’s weapons blockade. The Democratic Congress persons signing recent hostile-to-Israel letters have more than doubled.   

• Leading Democratic presidential candidates Berney Sanders and Warren hired Israel-hating surrogates and top staffers, including Congresswomen Omar, Tlaib, and AOC; Israel-basher Linda Sarsour; Darius Khalil Gordon, who tweeted about “Jew money”; Hamas-loving, Israel-hating “IfNotNow” co-founder Max Berger; Faiz Shakir; Matthew Duss; Belén Sisa, and others.

• Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillebrand (NY) has praised Israel-bashing Jew-haters Linda Sarsour, Tamika Mallory, and Carmen Perez, all of whom also admire racist anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan. 

• Anti-Semitic physical attacks have grown exponentially.  

• Democratic presidential candidates have been boycotting AIPAC.  

• Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg (IN), and others, announced plans to punish Israel for the presence of Jews living in lawful historic homelands of Judea-Samaria.  

• Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have called on conditioning U.S. aid to ally Israel, until Israel does what Sanders and Warren demand. 

•18 Democrats are co-sponsoring Rep. Ilhan Omar’s antisemitic House resolution protecting anti-Israel boycotts.  

• The Democratic National Committee passed a resolution in February 2019, calling on the U.S. to rejoin the Iran deal—a deal opposed by ZOA and AIPAC, that poses an existential threat to Israel’s 7 million Jews (as well as to the United States). Virtually every Democratic presidential candidate has vowed to rejoin this dangerous deal. 

Morton A. Klein is president of Zionist Organization of America President and Mark S. Levenson, Esq. is ZOA chairman