IN RETROSPECT, one of the most important elections in recent US history occurred last year in a bright-blue congressional district in northeastern Ohio. The early favorite was Nina Turner, a well-known former state senator and co-chair of Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign. But in February, several months after Turner launched her bid, two fledgling pro-Israel organizations, Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) and Pro-Israel America, endorsed her primary opponent, Cuyahoga County Democratic party chair Shontel Brown, presumably because of Turner’s stance on Israel-Palestine: She has argued that US aid should not be used to entrench the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Over the spring and summer, DMFI and Pro-Israel America spent shocking amounts of money to change the course of the race. DMFI spent over $2 million in independent expenditures, almost as much as Brown’s campaign did itself. Pro-Israel America contributed another $781,000 to Brown’s campaign directly; by comparison, her largest non-Israel-related direct donor provided less than $23,000.
Yet even those figures understate the scale of their intervention as pro-Israel groups also directed funds from organizations that ostensibly have nothing do with Israel-Palestine. When Turner ran against Brown a second time, in 2022, a political action committee called Mainstream Democrats added roughly $150,000 to the anti-Turner effort.
— source jewishcurrents.org | Peter Beinart | Jul 15, 2022