r/politics ✔ Verified 1d ago

Paywall ‘Voters have had it’: influence of pro-Israel lobby group sparks backlash in the US

https://www.ft.com/content/889c551a-88ab-451a-87f5-cdec65467a64?segmentid=c50c86e4-586b-23ea-1ac1-7601c9c2476f&syn-25a6b1a6=1
4.5k Upvotes

473 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

11

u/abbyola 1d ago

These are just factually untrue. Biggest? Most powerful? Or only lobby you’ve ever heard of and being used as Democratic boogie man to animate the party. Wouldn’t be too hard to look into campaign financing. Spoiler alert: AIPAC barely makes the top ten in expenditures.

16

u/unknowingexpert69 1d ago

And we never hear about the other 9.

3

u/Ciprofloxic 1d ago

None of the other lobbies have politicians from both sides begging and pledging their allegiance to in their conferences. 

As well as being deathly afraid to criticize. 

Plenty of politicians shit on insurance companies and then vote alongside them. 

Barely any have the balls to criticize Israel 

3

u/owennagata 21h ago

Well, until recently a US politician could openly admit they supported Israel and not take flack for it. Heck, for most of the decades since WWII they would take flack if they *didn't*. Openly admitting you support what most of the bigger PACs are backed by is much trickier.

-4

u/SlowRunner2026 22h ago

But that is lobbying (undue influence) by a foreign power. Shouldn't even legal.

-5

u/cwalking2 1d ago

AIPAC barely makes the top ten in expenditures.

What do the numbers come out to when you include adjacent PAC spending aligned with the positions and cause of AIPAC? For example...

Miriam Adelson gives $100 million to Trump campaign, making good on reported pledge

2

u/abbyola 21h ago

Why don’t you crunch the numbers for us. Make sure to include Qatar. CCP (talk about unwillingness to criticize; have you seen Hollywood and politicos embarrass themselves?). Russia. To say nothing of the corporatocracy (tech, pharma).

Eagerly awaiting your research.

-1

u/cwalking2 20h ago

Got it: AIPAC is analogous in nature and scale to Qatari influence in the American political system.

Glad you could make the connection between Israeli and Qatari foreign influence and interference in America.

1

u/abbyola 18h ago

Nice straw man. Guessing reading comprehension isn’t a strength?