[rad-green] Meet the AIPAC leaders bankrolling the Bernie Sanders attack ads

*https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/02/aipac-bankrolling-attack-ads-bernie-sanders-iowa-nevada.html
<https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/02/aipac-bankrolling-attack-ads-bernie-sanders-iowa-nevada.html>Al-Monitor
        February 19, 2020*







*Meet the AIPAC leaders bankrolling the Bernie Sanders attack adsBy Bryant
Harris ARTICLE SUMMARYSeveral high-profile AIPAC donors are bankrolling ads
against Bernie Sanders’ presidential bid as the lobbying group tackles the
growing criticism of Israel among Democrats. *
[image: image.png]
*REUTERS/Jason Redmond. US Democratic 2020 presidential candidate Sen.
Bernie Sanders waves to the audience at a campaign rally in the Tacoma Dome
in Tacoma, Washington, Feb. 17, 2020.*

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has recently emerged as the front-runner in the
Democratic presidential field. The rise of the progressive darling’s star
also is coinciding with a barrage of television attack ads against him in
the crucial early voting states of Iowa and Nevada.

Although the ads have been purchased by a super PAC called Democratic
Majority for Israel, they make no mention of Sanders’ pro-Palestinian
advocacy. Instead they take aim at Sanders’ perceived electability against
President Donald Trump in a general election, arguing that a
self-identified socialist is ill-equipped to take on Trump and highlighting
Sanders' heart attack last year.

Still, the bulk of the political action committee’s funding comes from a
group of high-profile political donors affiliated with the powerful
American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The influential lobbying
group has historically prided itself on bipartisanship. But its pushback
against Sanders, coupled with its social media ads targeting congressional
Democrats last month, reflects its growing concern over the pro-Palestinian
faction within the Democratic party.

The super PAC airing the anti-Sanders ads raised nearly $2.3 million for
its war chest last year. An Al-Monitor analysis of Federal Election
Commission filings
<https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/?committee_id=C00710848&two_year_transaction_period=2020&data_type=processed>
shows that
the vast majority of those funds — some $1.8 million — came from prominent
AIPAC donors in November and December alone.

Democratic Majority for Israel spent $800,000 of that money on its Iowa ad
buy. It’s still unclear how much the super PAC intends to spend on its
Nevada ad buy or how much it has raised so far this year.

Mark Mellman, an AIPAC strategist and prominent Democratic pollster,
launched the super PAC last year to support pro-Israel candidates and
combat the increasing skepticism of the close US ally within his party. In
his quest to take down Sanders, Mellman has marshaled significant resources
from some key movers and shakers in AIPAC and the broader pro-Israel world.

Democratic Majority for Israel’s biggest benefactor, Stacy Schusterman
<https://www.schusterman.org/users/stacy-schusterman>, sits on the AIPAC
National Council. Schusterman, who chairs her family’s oil business, Samson
Resources, donated $1 million to Mellman’s super PAC in December.

Gary Lauder, a venture capitalist, was also generous with a donation of
$500,000 that same month. His wife, Laura Lauder
<https://www.lauderfamilyfund.org/about/bio/>, sits on AIPAC’s northwest
regional board.

The group’s next biggest donor, Milton Cooper, owns New York-based Kimco
Realty and donates to the American Israel Education Fund, AIPAC’s sister
organization that sends lawmakers on trips to Israel.

Cooper is also a member of the AIPAC National Real Estate Committee
<https://www.aipac.org/connect/communities/real-estate-division/committee>,
a division within the organization for real estate professionals. Sen. Tom
Cotton
<https://www.aipac.org/connect/communities/real-estate-division/new-york-real-estate-division/past-real-estate-division-events>,
R-Ark., addressed the committee’s 10th annual luncheon last year. Two other
AIPAC real estate committee members — Michael Hackman and Mark Rubin — each
donated $25,000 to Mellman’s super PAC last year.

Paula Gottesman, an AIPAC congressional club member who sits on the AIPAC
New Jersey Council <http://events.aipac.org/NJSpringDinner/host-committee/>,
donated $100,000 to the super PAC in November. And Barry Porter, a
Democratic Majority for Israel Board member, forked over $50,000 to help
fund the super PAC in December.

Finally, Michael Sonnenfeldt, who donated $25,000 to the super PAC in
December, sits on the board of Trustees for the Washington Institute for
Near East Policy, a think tank with strong ties to AIPAC.

Additionally, The Intercept reported
<https://theintercept.com/2020/02/14/aipac-anti-bernie-sanders-ads-nevada/>
last
week that AIPAC is counting donations to Democratic Majority for Israel as
donations to the lobbying group, granting donors more access within the
organization. AIPAC — which rarely responds to media queries — flatly
denied the arrangement in an email to The Intercept.

Most of the super PAC’s contributors have a history of donating to
candidates on both sides of the aisle, but particularly favor pro-Israel
Democrats such as House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel and
Appropriations Chairwoman Nita Lowey, both of New York.

AIPAC started running Facebook ads against Sanders
<https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?active_status=all&ad_type=political_and_issue_ads&country=US&impression_search_field=has_impressions_lifetime&page_ids%5b0%5d=40217893542&q=bernie>
last
year, asking users to sign a petition telling him that “America stands with
Israel.” While the initial attacks slid largely under the radar, AIPAC
could not avoid a furor earlier this month when it posted social media ads
<https://twitter.com/aipac/status/1226183984230600704?s=21> accusing
“radicals in the Democratic party” of “pushing their anti-Semitic and
anti-Israel policies down the throats of the American people.”

Some of the ads included graphics singling out two lawmakers backing
Sanders: Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Ilhan Omar, D-Min
<https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/01/bernie-sanders-ilhan-omar-democrat-left-war-powers-iran.html>n.
Both Tlaib and Omar support the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement
against Israel despite Sanders’ opposition to it.

The graphic also included Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., who hasn’t endorsed
the boycott movement and has backed her home-state senator Amy Klobuchar
for president. (While Klobuchar’s positions on Israel closely align with
AIPAC, McCollum has introduced legislation to condition US military aid to
Israel based on its treatment of Palestinian child prisoners.)

AIPAC took down the ads and offered an “unequivocal apology
<https://twitter.com/aipac/status/1226183984230600704?s=21>” expressing
regret that “the ad’s imprecise wording distorted our message and offended
many.” The apology also insisted that the ads “alluded to a genuine concern
of many pro-Israel Democrats about a small but growing group, in and out of
Congress, that is deliberately working to erode the bipartisan consensus on
this issue and undermine the US-Israel relationship.”

A rival lobbying group, the left-leaning J Street
<https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2019/10/sanders-left-jstreet-2020-candidates-military-aid-israel.html>,
has called on Democratic Majority for Israel to take down the anti-Sanders
ads.

“Like their partner organization AIPAC — which recently ran vitriolic
attack ads echoing Republican smears against progressive Democrats —
[Democratic Majority for Israel’s] right-leaning positions on Israel and US
foreign policy are completely out of touch with the vast majority of
Democrats and American Jews,” J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami said in a
statement.

Whether AIPAC and Democratic Majority for Israel will be successful in
taking on Sanders and other pro-Palestinian Democrats remains to be seen.

The Sanders campaign said it raised $1.3 million in one day after the super
PAC started airing its Iowa ads. Still, Sanders was the favorite to win
Iowa when the ads aired, yet the caucuses resulted in a narrow tie between
the progressive senator and former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend,
Indiana.

And while presidential candidates have traditionally addressed the annual
AIPAC policy conference in election years, Sanders has indicated that he
will skip it this year — just as he did during his 2016 primary campaign.
Another candidate, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has also vowed to skip
the March conference.

*Bryant Harris is Al-Monitor's congressional correspondent. He was
previously the White House assistant correspondent for Yomiuri Shimbun,
Japan's largest newspaper. He has also written for Foreign Policy, Al
Jazeera English and IPS News. Prior to his stint in DC, he spent two years
as a US Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco. On Twitter: @brykharris_ALM
<https://twitter.com/brykharris_ALM>, Email: [email protected]
<[email protected]>.*

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