US: Sanders Says Pro-Israel Lobby Ready to Spend $233 Million to Defeat Candidates Critical of Netanyahu

US Senator Bernie Sanders says the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is prepared to spend $233 million in this fall’s congressional midterm elections to defeat candidates who speak out against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. In a Friday post on X, Sanders said the pro-Israel lobbying group intends to beat candidates who dare to criticize Netanyahu’s “extremist government.”
Sanders said $33 million was spent trying to defeat Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Democratic primary, but the effort failed. “They lost. They will keep losing,” he said. El-Sayed, a Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan, has strongly opposed unconditional US military aid to Israel and criticized the Netanyahu government’s policies in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Sanders added that there should be no more US military aid to Israel.
In the November midterms, polls broadly favor Democrats to win the House and possibly the Senate. The report says American voters’ views of Israel are shifting, particularly in light of the war in Gaza, and many Democrats running this year have taken a harder line against the Netanyahu government’s policies.