More than any political cycle in memory, the 2026 primary campaign season has been marked by frequent, and often hysterical, condemnations of the influence of the so-called “Israel lobby.”
After the conspiratorial gadfly Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) lost his Republican primary in May, he quipped about the Trump-endorsed former Navy SEAL officer who defeated him: “I would have come out sooner, but I had to call my opponent and concede, and it took a while to find Ed Gallrein in Tel Aviv.”
Way to question the patriotism of a decorated SEAL Team Six veteran, Tom. Keep it classy!
On the Democratic side, the bogeyman du jour has been the America Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Some successful Democratic candidates, such as Abdul El-Sayed in Arab-heavy Michigan, rode anti-AIPAC fervor to victory.
And some losing candidates, such as the comically corrupt Cori Bush in St. Louis, blamed AIPAC for their rejection.
In her concession speech, Bush vowed to dismantle AIPAC’s “kingdom.”
Your loss couldn’t possibly be because you defrauded two federal relief programs during COVID-19, could it, Cori?
These (literal) losers are barking up the wrong tree.
Massie had become a thorn in President Donald Trump’s side, regularly voting against the president on domestic priorities.
That, not any outside pro-Israel spending, is why Massie went down in flames.
For Democrats, El-Sayed’s success alone belies the popular mythology of AIPAC as a juggernaut — something everyone should have intuited 11 years ago, when the lobby failed to stop former President Barack Obama’s terrible Iran nuclear deal.
Even more to the point: AIPAC is a group of activist Americans who lobby and deploy money for an issue they care about.
Fact is, AIPAC is no different than the NRA or the NAACP.
Sore loser hysterics notwithstanding, there is truth to the allegation of meddlesome foreign interference in American politics.
But that interference isn’t coming from Israel.
It’s coming from terror-tied Islamic groups and Islamic governments.
El-Sayed’s wealthy father-in-law, Jukaku Tayeb, contributed $200,000 to a super PAC backing his son-in-law.
This is no tale of innocent family kumbaya: Tayeb is a founding committee member of the Islamic Society of North America, an organization long tied to Hamas and the broader Muslim Brotherhood network.
ISNA was named an unindicted coconspirator in the then-largest terror financing case in Justice Department history, the 2008 case against the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation.
El-Sayed has also raised more than $115,000 from individuals who have worked for another unindicted coconspirator from the HLF bust, the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
That donor pipeline includes CAIR higher-ups, such as the organization’s national board chair, Manal Fakhoury.
Lest we forget: CAIR was founded in 1994 as a front group to advance the interests of Hamas and the Brotherhood in the United States.
CAIR’s co-founder and executive director, Nihad Awad, said he was “happy to see”the Hamas pogrom of Oct. 7, 2023.
And the United Arab Emirates has designated CAIR as a terrorist organization — as have Texas and Florida, more recently.
This stench is hardly limited to El-Sayed.
According to sharia-law-promoting former Women’s March co-chair Linda Sarsour, CAIR was the single “largest institutional donor” to the Unity and Justice Fund PAC, which spent massively in New York City last year to send Zohran Mamdani to Gracie Mansion.
Another shady super PAC, American Priorities, has “channeled millions of dollars, primarily from donors with Arab, Muslim and/or Middle Eastern backgrounds, to a string of winning candidates in high-profile races,” Benjamin Weingarten of RealClear Investigations reports.
That’s bad enough. But there’s also massive infiltration at the national level.
Last year, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia deployed the single largest sum of money of any foreign country — nearly $92 million — to lobby for its interests in Washington.
Turkey was fourth; Israel wasn’t anywhere close.
In the two decades beginning in 2001, the kingdom — whose nationals included most of the 9/11 hijackers that same year — retained the single most agents registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (148).
Saudi frenemy Qatar, the spiritual and financial home of the Brotherhood worldwide, is routinely the single largest foreign funder of American higher education.
The Qataris cut massive FARA checks to land favorable coverage with prized outlets, such as Tucker Carlson’s cesspool of a podcast.
The emirate owns a piece of the Washington Wizards and the Washington Capitals, and even a chunk of the Empire State Building.
Getting the picture yet?
Seedy foreign cash is shaping our culture and our politics.
But it’s not coming from where the propagandists say it is.
Josh Hammer is Newsweek senior editor-at-large and host of “The Josh Hammer Show.”
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