Comment by Riaz Haq 18 hours ago

The Congressional Black Caucus’s Silent Partnership With AIPAC
The influential group of lawmakers has damaged its reputation as “conscience of the Congress” by staying silent on the Gaza genocide.

ANTHONY CONWRIGHT

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/congressional-black-caucu...

More than a year has passed since the International Court of Justice, the United Nations’ highest judicial body, issued its first order in the landmark case brought against Israel by South Africa, which contends that Israel has been committing acts of genocide in its war in Gaza. The ICJ found that “with respect to the right of the Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide…and the right of South Africa to seek Israel’s compliance,” South Africa’s case was “plausible.” Plausible: a restrained word that, in this context, fails to convey the harsh truth of the war Israel has been conducting. Palestinians are being starved, displaced, and slaughtered. More than 60,000 Palestinians have died, and 1.9 million are being brutally displaced, in a manner eerily similar to the dispossession of their forebears in the Nakba of 1948. By the end of September, according to a group of international food-aid organizations, more than 600,000 Palestinians would be experiencing famine, a completely preventable calamity marked by extreme food deprivation, acute malnutrition, and starvation-related deaths.

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By accepting AIPAC’s endorsements and money, CBC members are, to use a biblical turn of phrase, selling their birthright for a mess of pottage. AIPAC readily sets aside the political concerns of the CBC in its efforts, spending lavishly on campaigns for GOP members of Congress targeting measures on racial equality, which totaled more than $17 million in the 2023–24 cycle.

AIPAC—together with its two political action committees, AIPAC PAC and United Democracy Project—has one purpose: defending Israel at all costs. “We support candidates…based on one criteria [sic]—their commitment to strengthening the US-Israel relationship,” AIPAC spokesperson Marshall Wittmann told Politico in 2024.

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Jeffries and all seven members of the CBC’s leadership voted to send military aid to Israel; none cosponsored any bills or resolutions to limit such aid or block US arms sales. (Four of the six CBC members who currently serve on the House Foreign Affairs Committee have a similar record of eloquent silence on Israel’s relentless war on Gaza and US support for it.)

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Two years into the Gaza genocide, there has been some progress: More than half of the members of the Congressional Black Caucus now support a ceasefire. But while a ceasefire is a step in the right direction, it will do nothing to end the occupation that Palestinians continue to suffer under. A ceasefire resolution that does not name genocide does not reflect a politics grounded in conscience—it is an expedient political cover of the lowest order.

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This is the moment when the CBC can present itself as the conscience of Congress with honor—by leading the effort to guide this country through a key moral test of the 21st century. It’s true that demanding an end to US aid to Israel on the grounds that it’s advancing a genocide would likely expose legislators to yet more retaliation from AIPAC and the Israel lobby. But it’s equally true that the CBC must meet the genuine challenge of this historical moment. Adopting a position of unyielding defiance to Israel and its genocide in Gaza would lead both the CBC and the Democratic Party in a new direction that both organizations desperately need to follow. Instead of trying to wish away the atrocities committed by Israel, the Congressional Black Caucus could build and lead a multiracial coalition of resistance to a lobby that betrays the caucus’s mission, besieges its members, and injures its constituents. By resisting with a unified voice, the leaders of the CBC can make a difference. It is time to stand up.

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