A 30-second campaign advertisement in Illinois in March praised candidate Bushra Amiwola as an advocate for “real economic justice.” But the spot was not part of a genuine effort to get Amiwola into the U.S. House of Representatives. The candidate quickly disavowed the ad.
Public records show the ad was funded by a political action committee (PAC) linked to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the largest pro-Israel lobbying group in the United States. The tactic aims to confuse voters, as the ad was actually designed to siphon votes away from the more progressive candidate, Palestinian activist Kat Abughazaleh.
AIPAC has poured tens of millions of dollars into election campaigns to defeat candidates who criticize Israel. However, the group frequently uses shell PACs — where money is shuffled through multiple layers of different PACs — to conceal the true identity of the donor until after the election. According to critics, this is a “Russian doll approach” to avoid alienating voters.
“Every election cycle, AIPAC shows how broken our democracy is and how corrupt our political finance system is,” said Usamah Andrabi, spokesperson for the progressive organization Justice Democrats. “Every cycle, they lead the charge in exploiting those loopholes for right-wing donors, to the detriment of voters.”
Opposition to AIPAC is growing as public trust in pro-Israel policies wanes, especially after the war in Gaza. A New York Times and Siena College poll found 37% of U.S. voters now sympathize with Palestinians, while 35% sympathize with Israelis. Among Democrats, 57% sympathize with Palestinians. A Pew Research Center survey earlier this year showed 80% of Democrats hold unfavorable views of Israel.
Omar Shakir, executive director of the human rights group DAWN, said AIPAC’s use of shell groups is a “sign of weakness.” “They cannot defend Israel’s genocide, apartheid and ethnic cleansing, so they have to game the system out of public view,” he said.
DAWN analysis found 66 former AIPAC employees now working in the U.S. government, from Congress to the White House and military branches; nearly two dozen current AIPAC employees previously worked in U.S. government agencies. The group has called on AIPAC to publish its leadership and staffing lists, as most other non-profit organizations, including DAWN, already do.
AIPAC did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment at the time of publication.
