‘It’s become a litmus test’: wins for Israel critics shine light on key issue for Democrats

Brad Lander, who won his Democratic House primary, with New York mayor Zohran Mamdani in Brooklyn this week. Photograph: Eduardo Muñoz/Reuters View image in fullscreen Brad Lander, who won his Democratic House primary, with New York mayor Zohran Mamdani in Brooklyn this week. Photograph: Eduardo Muñoz/Reuters ‘It’s become a litmus test’: wins for Israel critics shine light on key issue for Democrats Candidates who believe Israel has committed genocide won big in New York – will it push the party to move their way? R egardless of which party wins control of Congress in November, New York City voters have all but ensured that next year a vocal bloc of new House Democrats will arrive on Capitol Hill, elected, in large part, because they believe Israel has committed a genocide in Gaza. That is an upshot of the primary elections held Tuesday in New York, where voters ousted two incumbent House Democrats and replaced a third who is retiring with progressives championed by Zohran Mamdani. The democratic socialist, who is the city’s first Muslim mayor, campaigned on opposing US support for Israel and rejecting the influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), which has for decades donated heavily to candidates that ally with the country’s government. The trio of insurgent victories in New York has sent shockwaves through the Democratic establishment, underscoring how internal divisions over Israel – an issue that dogged Joe Biden – continue to shape races across the country ahead of November’s midterm elections, when the party hopes to win back power from Donald Trump’s Republican allies. “I think that it is a testament to just how much our movement has progressed against lobbies like Aipac, who have tried to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to keep us in a position where we spend hundreds of billions of dollars of our taxpayer money to fund a genocide and weapons and bombs abroad,” said Usamah Andrabi, a spokesman for Justice Democrats. The progressive group had recruited doctoral student Darializa Avila Chevalier, who narrowly beat five-term congressman Adriano Espaillat after criticizing him for accepting money from Aipac . In the district represented by retiring congresswoman Nydia Velázquez, Justice Democrats endorsed state assembly member Claire Valdez, who triumphed in the Democratic primary over Brooklyn borough president Antonio Reynoso, after convincing voters she was more opposed to Israel than he was. “Now, we are seeing what happens when you give voters the opportunity and candidates who not only reject Aipac money and call it out for what it is – a rightwing lobby – but also uncompromisingly stand up to oppose continued funding for the genocide and for a free Palestine ,” Andrabi said. More than 75,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, after Hamas militants killed some 1,200 and took 250 hostage in an attack on Israel . Biden’s decision to back prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the wake of the