In early August, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., openly opposed special treatment for the pro-Israel lobby under U.S. election law. Appearing on One America News Network, Greene issued a defiant response to a fundraising email from the American Israel Political Action Committee that called her use of the term “genocide” for the conflict in Gaza “vile” and a betrayal of “American values.”

Greene promised to fight back against the group, commonly known as AIPAC, insisting that it register as a foreign lobbyist. “If AIPAC wants to come after me and accuse me of betraying my American values, they can bring it on,” she said, with characteristic pugnacity. “I will burn this bridge to the ground and let the flames light the way.”

While a strong majority of Republican voters — 71% in a recent survey— still approve of Israel’s actions in Gaza, some leading conservative politicians, especially Kentucky’s GOP Rep. Thomas Massie, and prominent conservative influencers including Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Theo Von and Joe Rogan have increasingly questioned the billions of taxpayer dollars the U.S. is spending to arm Israel for its war on Gaza.

Meanwhile, a recent Gallup poll found 60% of U.S. adults disapprove of Israel’s military actions in Gaza, including 92% of Democrats and 75% of independents. Despite fewer than one in 10 Democratic voters backing Israel’s nearly two-year-long campaign of slaughter and forced starvation in Gaza, the Democratic National Committee in late August blocked a resolution calling for recognizing Palestinian statehood and halting arms shipments to Israel.

This unwavering support for Israel among Democrats in Congress is not universal. Twenty progressive Democratic candidates have now committed to rejecting AIPAC campaign funding after the pro-Israel lobby targeted nine progressive legislators and defeated seven of them in the 2024 Democratic primaries for showing their support of Palestinians during the Gaza War.

The progressive outcry on the House floor against Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Gaza in the fall of 2023 set off alarms at AIPAC. “We’re seeing much more vocal detractors of the U.S.-Israel relationship, who are having an impact on the discussion,” AIPAC Executive Director Howard Kohr told The Washington Post at the time, “and we need to respond.”

AIPAC spent more than $100 million dollars in the 2024 election, including $8.5 million to defeat Cori Bush, D-Mo., and, in the most expensive primary in U.S. history, another $15 million to defeat Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., AIPAC slammed both for their criticism of Israel’s policies.

Record political contributions by AIPAC and newly affiliated organizations, including Democratic Majority for Israel, have raised old questions about whether AIPAC should register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. FARA was enacted in 1938 to counter Nazi and Soviet influence by requiring foreign lobbyists to register with the U.S. Department of Justice and disclose their contacts, activities and funding. FARA also bars direct campaign contributions to politicians from an “agent of a foreign principal.”

The push against the pro-Israel lobby began in the 1950s under President Dwight Eisenhower, whose administration repeatedly demanded that the American Zionist Council (AZC) register as “agents of a foreign government.” In 1962, the Department of Justice, under Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, alleged that AZC was being funded by the Israeli government through the Jewish Agency for Israel and likewise ordered the council to register. The organization never complied, and five years later, the Justice Department rescinded its order after AZC had been renamed and reorganized as AIPAC in 1963.

Indeed, AIPAC has eluded the law since its inception by arguing it’s not directly funded by Israel but by American citizens. Before you contribute to any political candidate, you should consult the AIPAC Tracker website to see which candidates are accepting money from the pro-Israel lobby and how much.

In my recent travels to the occupied West Bank, both as a volunteer English teacher and an interfaith peace delegate, I saw firsthand how Israeli violence against Palestinians and its system of apartheid is supported by our country’s leadership. We as Americans should respect human rights both here and abroad, and that principle should be reflected in our political donations.

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Jim DeBrosse is a veteran journalist and retired assistant professor of journalism. Since 2022, he has traveled to the West Bank as a volunteer English instructor and as a member of an interfaith peace delegation. This column was produced for Progressive Perspectives, a project of The Progressive magazine, and distributed by Tribune News Service.

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