ST. LOUIS (AP) \u2014 Most members of Congress have stood firmly behind Israel since the Hamas attack last month, but not Cori Bush. The Missouri Democrat called Israel\u2019s response a \u201cwar crime\u201d and an \u201cethnic cleansing campaign,\u201d and was among the few House members who opposed a resolution supporting Israel.
Her unwavering stance has angered some in her district. St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell on Monday dropped a U.S. Senate bid to challenge Bush in next year\u2019s 1st District Democratic primary, and moderate Democrats believe he could win.
Bush isn\u2019t alone. She\u2019s among a small group of Democrats viewed by critics as insufficiently supportive of Israel \u2014 both long before and now after Hamas\u2019 Oct. 7 attack on Israel \u2014 or insufficiently critical of Hamas. Across those districts, moderates like Bell are being encouraged to run. In particular, Summer Lee in Pennsylvania, Jamaal Bowman in New York, Ilhan Omar in Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib in Michigan probably will face challengers.
All five have condemned Hamas\u2019 attack and antisemitism, but they\u2019ve all made statements seen as inflammatory by Israel\u2019s staunchest supporters and been critical of U.S. military aid to Israel.
Bush and Omar accused Israel of \u201cethnic cleansing.\u201d Summer Lee said it had committed \u201chuman rights violations.\u201d And at a recent cease-fire rally, Bowman said: \u201cWe cannot allow the lives of anyone to be erased. This erasure of Palestinian lives and experience has been happening for decades.\u201d
Adding to the fraught politics for Democrats is the fact that others could face pressure for the opposite reason \u2014 such as Shri Thanedar in Detroit, who represents a heavily Democratic district with a big Muslim population but has backed Israel.
Last week, the House overwhelmingly passed a resolution supporting Israel. Bush, Bowman, Lee, Omar and Tlaib were among nine Democrats who opposed the measure, saying it failed to call for a cease-fire, create a pathway to peace or express the need to protect Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
Bowman, Lee, Omar and Tlaib also were among the 17 sponsors of Bush\u2019s resolution asking the Biden administration to call for a cease-fire. Critics of that resolution said it failed to mention Hamas\u2019 unprovoked attack on Israel, hostages held by Hamas or that the U.S. considers Hamas a terrorist organization.
All five are considered progressives in the Democratic caucus and represent strongly Democratic districts, so the main threat to their re-election prospects would probably come from the Democratic Party.
Challenges to Bush and the others were possible even before the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 or Israel\u2019s subsequent attack on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. But their stances after Oct. 7 have fueled calls for primary challengers.
Lee and Omar \u2014 who narrowly held off primary competitors in 2022 \u2014 may be particularly vulnerable.
The progressive group Justice Democrats, which has backed primary challengers against moderate Democrats around the country, blamed the primary challenges on the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, and a network of Republican donors who help fund AIPAC\u2019s efforts to elect unequivocal allies of Israel.
\u201cDemocratic members are truly out of step with their voters and their bases who do not want to see us barreling toward another war on their taxpayer dollars,\u201d Justice Democrats\u2019 spokesperson Usamah Andrabi said.
It is unfortunate, Andrabi said, that the House Democratic leadership has not taken a stronger stance against AIPAC\u2019s efforts to knock off rank-and-file Democrats.
It remains unclear whether House Democrats will help incumbents fend off primary challengers through campaign fundraising arms. One organization, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said it could potentially get involved in a primary race to protect an incumbent, but declined to discuss specifics.
Before Oct. 7, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., issued statements of support for Omar and others, saying he will support the reelection of every House Democratic incumbent, regardless of ideology.
AIPAC declined to discuss its campaign efforts, saying \u201cthere will be a time for political action, but right now our priority is building and sustaining congressional support for Israel\u2019s fight to permanently dismantle Hamas, which perpetrated this barbaric, terrorist attack on the Jewish state.\u201d
Tlaib, the lone Palestinian American in Congress, has been an outspoken opponent of the Biden administration\u2019s response to the conflict. On Friday, she posted a video on social media showing anti-war protests across the United States and accusing President Joe Biden of supporting what she said was genocide against the Palestinian people. \u201cWe will remember in 2024,\u201d she said. The White House declined comment Saturday on the video.
While Tlaib defeated her primary opponent handily last year, pro-Israel groups have already signaled that they will focus on defeating her in 2024. The Democratic Majority for Israel \u2014 which bills itself as the \u201cvoice of pro-Israel Democrats\u201d \u2014 began running ads against Tlaib in Detroit this week.
Tlaib\u2019s metro Detroit House district includes a large Arab American population in Dearborn and a substantial Jewish constituency in Southfield.
Her congressional neighbor, however, is in a different situation: Tlaib and Thanedar have feuded publicly since he criticized her statements on Hamas\u2019 attack on Israel, and Thanedar \u2014 a freshman who represents Detroit \u2014 has since drawn criticism from Tlaib on how he runs his office.
Thanedar\u2019s Detroit district has been a center of pro-Palestinian pushback in the state, with thousands of demonstrators calling for a cease-fire in the city\u2019s downtown on Oct. 28.
He has a primary challenger in former state Sen. Adam Hollier \u2014 Thanedar beat Hollier by 5 percentage points in a nine-way primary in 2022 \u2014 but Hollier\u2019s campaign said his run isn\u2019t a response to Thanedar\u2019s stance on Israel.
In Pittsburgh, Lee has faced broad criticism from the Jewish community, where members just marked the five-year anniversary of a gunman\u2019s rampage through the Tree of Life synagogue, killing 11 people in the worst attack on Jews on American soil.
On Tuesday, a group of 36 rabbis and four cantors released a letter criticizing Lee for voting against the House resolution expressing support for Israel and for supporting Bush\u2019s cease-fire resolution.
\u201cIt\u2019s a rare day in any Jewish community when you have Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, Chabad and Reconstructionists together on one page,\u201d said Rabbi Daniel Fellman of Pittsburgh\u2019s Temple Sinai, who helped organize the effort. \u201cBut the reality is that Rep. Lee isn\u2019t representing her constituents.\u201d
Lee already has one declared opponent, and more may be coming.
Bhavini Patel, 29, said she would have run regardless of Lee\u2019s stance on Israel. But, she said, Lee\u2019s standing in the Jewish community shows how Lee doesn\u2019t try to understand the people she represents.
In Minneapolis, a former school board member, Don Samuels, is considering a second campaign against Omar after he came within 2 percentage points of unseating her in 2022\u2019s primary election.
That close race turned mostly on the future of policing in the city where George Floyd was murdered. It remains to be seen how Omar\u2019s stance on Israel will play out in her district, which has a large Somali American Muslim population.
Omar has long been dogged by accusations that she is anti-Israel and antisemitic \u2014 accusations that have intensified since the Hamas attack. Since then she has criticized both Hamas for its decision to attack Israel and the Israeli government\u2019s response. Her main focus has been the impact on civilians in the Gaza Strip. She has called for a cease-fire and for Hamas to release hostages.
In New York, current Westchester County Executive George Latimer is considering challenging Bowman.
Latimer said people had encouraged him to challenge Bowman long before Oct. 7, including overtures that had nothing to do with Israel. After Hamas\u2019 attack, however, some in the Jewish community have intensified their efforts.
A group of more than two dozen rabbis last month publicized a letter they wrote asking Latimer to challenge Bowman, citing the congressman\u2019s posture on Israel.
Latimer said he would decide in the coming months.
In Missouri, Bush \u2014 who has called Israel an \u201capartheid\u201d state \u2014 said she is pushing a \u201cpro-peace agenda.\u201d
Writing on social media, she said, \u201cIsrael\u2019s collective punishment against Palestinians for Hamas\u2019s actions is a war crime. I strongly condemn Hamas & their appalling violations of human rights, but violations of human rights don\u2019t justify more human rights violations in retaliation.\u201d
Her challenger, Bell, said those types of comments \u201csend the wrong message and we need to be sending to rogue nations and dictators and terrorist groups the message that that they cannot have missiles trained on Israel like we see with Hamas, like we see with Iran.\u201d
The Rev. Darryl Gray, who like Bush is a leading civil rights activist in St. Louis, said he saw Bush as an advocate for peace. He said she believes that Israeli leaders are \u201cnot looking for de-escalation, not looking for cease-fire, but looking for revenge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n