WASHINGTON – The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is facing criticism over its latest ad campaign on Facebook, which targets progressive Democratic congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush.
The text in the paid posts by AIPAC, the most influential pro-Israel lobby group in Washington, read: “Israelis and Palestinians deserve peace, which will only come through engagement and direct talks. Inciting hate by demonizing Israel and spreading vicious, dangerous lies about our democratic ally doesn’t advance the prospects for peace.”
The images of each lawmaker accuse them respectively of lying about Israel – attributing quotes such as “apartheid,” “act[s] of terrorism” and “ethnic cleansing” to them – while putting “stop the lies” and “stop the hate” in bold letters above a link reading “work for peace.”
The left-wing, pro-Israel J Street organization slammed AIPAC for the ads. “After 4 years backing Trump’s far-right policies, AIPAC seems to be declaring war on progressive Democrats with incendiary ads falsely accusing Congresswomen of color of supporting terror & hate,” it tweeted. “This isn’t ‘bipartisan.’ It doesn’t help Israel. It doesn’t speak for American Jews.”
Tlaib tweeted in response, “I am so sick of this shit.” Ocasio-Cortez and Bush, meanwhile, did not comment.
AIPAC took out additional ads targeting Ocasio-Cortez and Omar individually, as well. The ad targeting the New York lawmaker reads: “As Israeli citizens confronted thousands of rocket attacks from Hamas, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez was working to undermine Israel’s ability to defend itself by blocking a Biden-approved arms sale to our partner.” The image reads “Tell AOC: don’t reward Hamas.”
The anti-Omar ad reads “Stand WITH America. Stand AGAINST Terrorists.” The image of the post states: “For Ilhan Omar, there is no difference between America and the Taliban. Between Israel and Hamas. Between democracies and terrorists,” adding a link declaring “Tell Rep. Omar: Condemn terrorists, not America.”
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Omar’s communications director, Jeremy Slevin, tweeted that “the language AIPAC uses in paid ads to smear and vilify [Omar] is virtually identical to the language used in death threats she gets. Make no mistake: AIPAC is putting Rep. Omar’s life at risk with repeated Islamophobic attack ads.”
Slevin added that “it shouldn’t have to be stated, but baselessly linking Muslim-Americans to terrorism is *the* textbook example of Islamophobia and is routinely used to silence advocacy for Palestinian human rights.”
An AIPAC spokesperson defended the ad concerning Omar as “completely fair and accurate. It is not a personal attack and highlights her outrageous statement putting the United States and Israel on the same level as the Taliban and Hamas.”
AIPAC also responded to Slevin directly on Twitter. “Your baseless attack on us can’t deflect from [Omar]’s attack on America and Israel,” it wrote, sharing a screenshot of her tweet that initiated the controversy.
Omar clarified her remarks on her alleged equating of the groups at the time, saying of the controversy: “On Monday, I asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken about ongoing International Criminal Court investigations. To be clear: the conversation was about accountability for specific incidents regarding those ICC cases, not a moral comparison between Hamas and the Taliban and the U.S. and Israel.”
She added: “I was in no way equating terrorist organizations with democratic countries with well-established judicial systems.”
She has recently attempted to proactively engage with Jewish colleagues, particularly following the controversy related to her prior comments on the ICC, earning praise from previously critical Democratic lawmakers and Jewish establishment figures.
Omar and AIPAC have been at odds since she took office in 2019. In her first weeks in Washington, she tweeted that support for Israel in the United States was “all about the Benjamins,” adding that she was referring to AIPAC. She subsequently apologized for those remarks, saying “antisemitism is real and I am grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of antisemitic tropes.”
She added that she “reaffirm[ed] the problematic role of lobbyists in our politics, whether it be AIPAC, the NRA or the fossil fuel industry.”
AIPAC has since devoted attention to the Minnesota lawmaker, most recently in a contentious ad campaign in May where her face was placed next to Hamas rockets. The ad, which read “When Israel targets Hamas, Rep. Omar calls it ‘an act of terrorism,'” was factually inaccurate. Omar described Israeli airstrikes killing civilians in Gaza, not the targeting of Hamas, as terrorism – and her office decried the ad for “blatantly peddling both anti-Muslim hate speech and disinformation.”
Democratic leadership condemned the ads at the time, with longtime AIPAC allies House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer calling the ads “deeply cynical and inflammatory” and not advancing “the goal of increasing support for Israel,” respectively.
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