Ilhan Omar Stands Up for Gaza, Defeats Pro-Israeli Occupation Funding in U.S. Elections

The American Zionist lobby has long funneled millions of dollars to unseat congressional members critical of “Israel,” but these efforts proved futile against Muslim Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.

On August 14, 2024, Omar won the Democratic primary in Minnesota, securing her place as the party’s nominee for the November 2024 congressional elections, which will coincide with the presidential race.

This marks Omar’s fourth victory and her second defeat of Don Samuels, a Jamaican immigrant and the candidate backed by Jewish and evangelical Christian extremists, in the Democratic primary.

The significance of this victory lies in how it undermined the influence of the Zionist money, which had already toppled two of Israeli Occupation’s most vocal critics in Congress—Jamaal Bowman of New York and Cori Bush of Missouri—through massive financial campaigns due to their strong opposition to the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

This year’s elections saw the Israeli-Palestinian issue becoming a focal point of external spending in the Democratic primaries.

Significance of the Victory

Omar's victory can be summarized as a significant boost for the anti-Israel faction within the House and the Democratic Party.

It coincides with candidate Kamala Harris and her new running mate’s attempt to align with groups within the party that oppose the genocide in Gaza, particularly the Uncommitted group, which represents half a million votes and was a key factor in Joe Biden stepping out of the presidential race.

The Hill newspaper emphasized the importance of Omar's victory by stating that “progressives in the House received a much-needed victory Tuesday night with Rep. Ilhan Omar.”

It noted that Omar's win was “a test of the progressive wing’s strength within the Democratic Party,” highlighting that she triumphed despite her outspoken criticism of Israeli Occupation’s handling of the war in Gaza, which could have put her in a potentially weak position.

This suggests that many Americans share her views on defending Gaza and criticizing the Israeli Occupation.

Omar expressed this in a series of tweets on X, thanking her supporters, “Tonight, special interests lost, and our movement won.”

Ilhan Omar faced criticism for her statements against the Israeli Occupation, with House Republicans voting in 2023 to remove her from the Foreign Affairs Committee due to her 2019 post on X, where she said that support for “Israel” is driven by money, not principles.

Omar hopes that her party’s Democratic majority in the House will lead to her reinstatement on the Foreign Affairs Committee, from which the Republican majority ousted her on allegations of anti-Semitism.

It was also noteworthy that, while justifying the pro-Israel lobby’s relatively low spending against Omar this time, and leaving the matter to a Jewish-Christian business lobby, the leaders of AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) admitted the strength of the anti-Israeli Occupation movement within Omar’s district, stating that no matter how much is spent against her, her strong relationship with her supporters in Minnesota would ensure her return to Congress. This indicates that Omar's victory is more about anti-Israel sentiment than Jewish money.

This also suggests that Operation al-Aqsa Flood and the Israeli assault on Gaza have significantly influenced American public awareness, despite Zionist propaganda.

In this context, Axios reported on August 13 that Minneapolis “was the epicenter” for the Uncommitted movement protesting the war in Gaza, implicitly supporting Omar for her solidarity with Gaza against “Israel.”

The Minnesota Reformer newspaper stated that “Omar’s win is a victory for Minneapolis progressives, as well as opponents of Israel’s war in Gaza.”

It predicted that “Omar will likely return to Washington for another term given nominal opposition in the November election,” where she will face Republican challenger Dalia al-Aqidi, an Iraqi-American secular Muslim journalist.

‘Zionist-Evangelical-Nazi Alliance’

Before Omar's victory, on August 11, The Intercept revealed that alongside the American Zionist lobby (AIPAC) opposing her, Jewish businessmen and far-right "Christian neo-Nazis" formed a WhatsApp group against her.

The group, titled Zionists for Don Samuels Against Ilhan Omar, was created to support her opponent, Samuels, and it raised significant funds to unseat Ilhan Omar.

The Intercept highlighted that the group’s prominent founders were “wealthy pro-Israel donors” who “coordinated to infuse last-minute cash into Don Samuels’s primary race against Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.”

One participant in this WhatsApp group was Michael Sinensky, a wealthy entrepreneur who expressed his support for “alt right Christian Neo Nazis.”

In a message sent on July 24, 2024, campaign advisor Alexander Minn wrote, “We all have the power to help get rid of the squad and public enemy number one to Jews, Israel, and America, Ilhan Omar.”

In a statement, Minn alleged antisemitism on the part of Omar. “Rep. Omar is a purveyor of hate against Jewish people, routinely criticized by both Democratic and Republican colleagues for her antisemitic bigotry,” he said. 

“I hope she loses, and I’ve done everything in my power and in accordance with the 

law to make sure that she does.”

In response, Ilhan Omar commented in a speech following her victory that the campaign had been among the ugliest and most disgusting she had ever encountered. She noted that their opponent was prepared to align with literal Nazis to overcome them.

The Zionist-Christian lobby is working to unseat a group of anti-occupation representatives known as The Squad.

Key members of The Squad include Ilhan Omar from Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib from Michigan, Ayanna Pressley from Massachusetts, and Jamaal Bowman, among others.

AIPAC has formed two political action committees that have spent over $25 million to defeat just two current Democrats, Representatives Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman, highlighting the scale of spending in favor of “Israel” in U.S. elections.

The same Zionist-Christian campaign supporting pro-Israel candidates in Congress was reported by Middle East Eye (MEE) on August 12, 2024.

The report stated that a group of wealthy pro-Israel political donors in the United States raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in an 11th-hour campaign to unseat Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.

While these efforts have been ongoing for several years, the pace of political spending by these groups accelerated after the Israeli war on Gaza began in October 2023.

MEE noted that “since being elected to Congress in 2018, the Minnesota lawmaker [Ilhan Omar] has been a main target of attacks from advocates of Israel.”

Omar previously wrote on X that AIPAC spends significant amounts of money on lawmakers who push policies favorable to “Israel.”

“In 2022, The United Democracy Project, the AIPAC-affiliated Super PAC, spent $350,000 in a failed attempt against Omar in her primary election,” as per MEE.

How Do Israeli Committees Operate?

Before Omar's victory, Politico revealed on August 13 that AIPAC and other Israeli lobbying groups work aggressively to oust progressive members of Congress and crush them with a machine of money and propaganda.

The report emphasized that “pro-Israel super PACs spend jaw-dropping sums to wipe out two top liberals in Congress. And leaders fear they have no way to stop it from happening again in 2026.”

“Those groups, chiefly the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s super PAC, spent a combined $25 million on ads to defeat Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) and Cori Bush (D-Mo.) this summer in what became the two most expensive House primaries ever,” according to the same source.

“After both Bowman and Bush crumbled under that avalanche of spending, prompted by their criticism of Israel in the country’s war with Hamas, progressive Democrats have awoken to a bleak new reality that could haunt them for years to come: They have no organized way to counter that kind of money."

“And they fear AIPAC and allied groups will be more empowered to take on even bigger targets next cycle and beyond because they know their strategy works,” the report added.

In response to the Zionist lobby's successful effort to unseat her in the Democratic primary, Gaza-supporting Congresswoman Cori Bush said, “I’m coming to tear your kingdom down."

Cori Bush is one of the most prominent U.S. lawmakers who has stood in solidarity with the Palestinian cause. She has repeatedly condemned the Israeli Occupation’s bloody war on Gaza, describing it as genocide, and has criticized U.S. support for “Israel,” which angered the Zionist lobby in the United States.

Her defeat has reignited debate over the role of Jewish money and the Zionist lobby in toppling Israeli Occupation’s critics and supporters of Gaza following the genocidal attacks there. It has also highlighted the growing defiance against the Zionist lobby.

After the lobby’s efforts to unseat Gaza-supporting Congressman Jamaal Bowman, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who defeated the lobby and won, said, “I think we need to have a real conversation about the AIPAC.”

“I think that what we do need to have a real conversation about is how a Republican — primarily Republican and largely Republican-financed — organization is playing and dumping money and playing an extremely divisive role in the Democratic Party,” she added.

A progressive campaign operative, granted anonymity to speak candidly, told POLITICO, “AIPAC shapes who gets elected as Democrats in Congress. It’s bigger than any one race, it’s about — what does the Democratic caucus as a whole look like?” 

“The Democratic party as a whole needs to have a larger conversation about, ‘Are we gonna call this out?’”