US SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON RECEIVED $524,000 FROM AIPAC $95,000 FOR PASSING $14.5BN MILITARY AID PACKAGE FOR ISRAEL
May 7, 2024THE AMERICAN ISRAEL Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, donated around $95,000 to Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., in November, according to an analysis undertaken by The Intercept of Federal Election Commission records. The pro-Israel lobbying group was Johnson’s top donor in 2023, pouring money into his campaign coffers just after he led the passage of a $14 billion aid package to Israel.
AIPAC’s political action committee donated a total of $104,000 to Johnson last year, with the majority of payments coming since the start of the Gaza war and after Johnson was elected House Speaker in late October. That’s more than four times the roughly $25,000 the group donated to his last congressional campaign, when it was also his top donor, as The Intercept previously reported.
Over the span of his entire political career Johnson is said to have received around $524,000 in campaign donations from AIPAC.
James Zogby, the founder and president of the Arab American Institute, said that the group’s campaign contributions have two purposes: to “reward candidates who vote their way” and as “a cudgel that is used to keep people in line,” citing AIPAC’s past attack ads against Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Summer Lee, and Rep. Jamaal Bowman.
Even as a growing number of Democrats are willing to buck the pro-Israel consensus in Washington and reject AIPAC’s influence, they remain heavily under-resourced. “The key is there’s no comparable groups on the other side,” said Stephen Walt, the co-author of “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy”. “There’s no set of pro-Palestinian or Arab American political action committees with anywhere near the same resources.”
With billions of Muslims and anti-Israel supporters around the world, it is inconceivable to think that none of them have got together and created an effective lobby group to counteract the impact of AIPAC. This is a conundrum that needs to be addressed IMMEDIATELY!
@theintercept
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