 Is there a threshold for you, and do you think there should be one for the United States government, and which the U.S. would say, let's hold off for a second in terms of civilian casualties? Is there a point at which you would start to— You just heard Republican Senator Lindsey Graham answer the question that many of us have asked. How many innocent civilians have to die until you call for a ceasefire? And the answer is, as many as it takes, 1,000, 2,000, 10,000, the number doesn't matter. We're unequivocally standing with Israel no matter what. They can bomb refugee camps, administer collective punishment, use white phosphorus. It doesn't matter how many innocents die, we are going to stand with Israel, even if that makes us complicit. Now, that answer is not surprising, coming from a bloodthirsty warmonger like Lindsey Graham, but many liberals might be surprised to learn that this is the same stance as the Biden administration. They've explicitly stated that they're not drawing red lines for Israel, and that's not surprising considering that the White House Press Secretary dismissed calls for a ceasefire as repugnant and compared anti-Israel protesters, who by the way are calling for a ceasefire, to the Nazis who marched in Charlottesville in 2017. And the reason why they're saying this, the reason why it's permissible to just dismiss the suffering and slaughter of innocent Palestinians is because our politicians and media have so thoroughly dehumanized Palestinians that the idea of an innocent Palestinian itself is literally being challenged, and that's not hyperbole. I would encourage the other side to not so lightly throw around the idea of innocent Palestinian civilians as is frequently said. I don't think we would so lightly throw around the term innocent Nazi civilians during World War II. I mean 50% of the people in Gaza are children, but we have to be really careful with our language here so as to not humanize the Palestinians because we don't want to give Americans the impression that Palestinians are innocent in the middle of Israel's genocide, otherwise the public might start to question whether or not it's ethical for us to support them being wiped off the map, or being leveled like a parking lot, as one politician put it. I don't even want to call it the Palestinian flag because they're not a state, they're a territory that's about to probably get eviscerated and go away here shortly as we're going to turn that into a parking lot. Despicable, but completely on brand for Republicans. I mean they don't care about Americans being slaughtered endlessly and countless mass shootings, so of course they're not going to care about innocent civilians in Gaza being massacred as well. But on the subject of gun violence, many democratic politicians have rightfully posed the question to Republicans that is now being asked to them, how many more innocent people have to die until you take action? In the case of gun violence, how many more innocent Americans have to be murdered until Republicans do something? Ban assault weapons, pass a national background check law. And we've never gotten a direct answer to that question, but years of inaction has essentially told us everything that we need to know. And when democratic politicians hammer Republicans for their complicity in gun violence, they're quick to call out the role played by the NRA. And they're correct to point that out. The NRA spends millions of dollars every single election cycle almost exclusively on Republicans to buy their complicity and it works. As Democratic Congressman Richie Torres puts it, no amount of mass murder against children is enough for the Republican Party to let go of the iron grip the NRA has on them. Sickening. And he even courageously called for the abolition of the NRA entirely. And what he's saying here makes sense because when human life is at stake, how can you justify taking money from an organization that is effectively paying you to be complicit in the deaths of innocent people? It's basically blood money. But the same can be said about him as well. Like the NRA, APEC is a far right neo-conservative interest group that spends millions and millions of dollars every single election cycle lobbying politicians to buy their complicity and Israel's oppression of the Palestinian people in West Bank and Gaza. But unlike the NRA, APEC actually gives to both Republicans and Democrats, though both organizations spend close to the same amount lobbying each year, give or take. So if you're wondering why liberal Democrats unequivocally support Israel's right-wing government and refuse to criticize Netanyahu's war crimes, even though he is basically their version of Donald Trump, this is why. It's the same reason why the Republicans won't do anything about gun vines. In the same way that the NRA buys compliance, APEC does the same when it comes to Israel policy. Take Richie Torres, for example, again. His biggest campaign contributor in the last election cycle was APEC. And that money was well spent because Richie Torres has not only shot down the notion of a ceasefire, but he's also criticized people calling for one and also denies the notion altogether that Israel is doing a genocide in Gaza. Now, keep in mind that Israeli Holocaust scholar Raz Siegel says that Israel's assault on Gaza is a textbook case of genocide. And on top of that, the UN's director of human rights was signed over the West's support for what he calls genocide, his words not mine. But if you ask Richie Torres whether or not it's a genocide, well, here's what it'll say. The notion that Israel's committed a death like cleansing and genocide is absurd. And keep in mind that the critics of Israel have been accusing Israel of committing genocide long before the conflict. Israel isn't an enormously complicated situation. If you believe, as I do, that Israel has the right to defend itself. In order to defend itself, it has to drive Hamas out of power. If Israel were to keep Hamas in power, it would run the risk of an even deadlier terrorist attack against its own people in the future. And Israel cannot afford a Hamas that's empowered to perpetrate deadly terrorist attack against its own people. The highest responsibility of any government, whether it's the United States or Israel, is to protect its people. With a straight face, he said the notion that Israel is committing a genocide is absurd. Now, I, for one, I'm more inclined to agree with the Israeli Holocaust scholar and an expert on human rights at the UN. I'm inclined to think that they know a lot more about this than Richie Torres. But I mean, his point is that Israel has the right to defend itself no matter the cost. So this begs the question, again, how many innocent Palestinians have to die in the name of Israel defending itself before Richie Torres says enough is enough. 10,000, 20,000, I mean 3,195 children plus have already been killed in three weeks in the name of self-defense. So the question is, how much is enough for Richie Torres? And as someone who knows the power of lobbying, he knows the answer. So let's put his tweet back up, and you'll notice that I took the liberty to change a couple of words. Quote, no amount of mass murder against children is enough for the Democratic Party to let go of the iron grip A-PAC has on them, sickening. So when he calls out the NRA for their blood money, that's the pot calling the kettle black. And I may have changed some words there in that tweet, but that is effectively the position that Richie Torres, as well as the Biden administration, is taking, which isn't a surprise considering all the money that Biden took as well from the Israel lobby during his tenure as a U.S. Senator. But if you point this out, your anti-Semitic, according to Richie Torres, because he responded to claims that he's bought off by lobbyists saying, there's a false narrative that I am pro-Israel because of quote, the Jewish lobby or quote, Jewish money or whatever anti-Semitic tropes critics wish to invoke. Left unmentioned is the fact that I have been pro-Israel for nearly a decade long before I ever thought of running for Congress. Now, to his latter point, I mean, I guess that's fair. Maybe he was unapologetically pro-Israel before running for Congress, but the same can also be said about Republicans that Richie Torres criticizes. Maybe Jim Jordan, the single biggest individual recipient of NRA money, was also pro-gun before he got into Congress. And he was always really enthusiastic about no gun safety laws in America. I mean, if it's true for Richie Torres, the same can be said for pro-gun Republicans, right? Now, his main point there is that pointing out this corruption is apparently anti-Semitic. Now, if you'll notice, he did a little bit of a switcheroo there and he said the Jewish lobby and Jewish money, which is a straw man because critics who refer to APEC are referring to the Israel lobby. Now, there is a difference and it's important that we don't muddy the waters between these differences and obfuscate. So the difference is that the Israel lobby does not spend money at the behest of the Jewish people. This is not a Jewish human rights organization or Jewish advocacy organization. They spend money at the behest of Israel's right wing government. And this isn't unique to Israel. If you look at the total foreign lobbying done since 2016, Israel is actually ninth out of 10. Number one is China. Is it synophobic to point that out? No, because everyone knows that China is lobbying when it comes to business and trade. Saudi Arabia spends more than Israel. So when we point out that it's wrong to sell them weapons because we know that they're going to use them on innocent Yemenis, is it Islamophobic to point that out? No, because Saudi Arabia represents the Saudi Arabian government when they lobby, not Muslim people. Similarly, when the Israel lobby spends money, they are not advocating for Jewish people. They are promoting the neo-conservative positions that the Israeli government holds when it comes to Iran. And they're trying to buy silence when it comes to the Israeli government's treatment of Palestinians. But all of a sudden, according to Richie Torres, it's anti-Semitic. No, that is such a despicable thing to say, because anti-Semitism is very real and it is rising around the globe. Now, there are conspiracy theories about Jews controlling the governments and the media, and they are deeply harmful and anti-Semitic, and we must defeat them. But what these defenders of Israel are doing is they're trying to muddy the waters and pretend as if criticism of Israel is tantamount to those right-wing conspiracy theories about Jewish people. When that doesn't even make sense because we don't have that same standard for any other government because it's illogical. Of course, you can critique a government without critiquing the people. People are people and governments are governments. But what Richie Torres is paid to do is draw this equivalent specifically to silence critics of Israel. But in doing so, he is effectively smearing Jewish people, a community that he is not a part of. Because Jewish people are not responsible for the actions of Israel's fascist government. And to say that a criticism of Israel is tantamount to a criticism of Jewish people is that not an incitement of hatred, because when we see that Israel is doing war crimes, you're basically saying no, Jewish people are responsible for that too. That's not okay. Countless Jewish peace activists have led protests against Israel's genocide in Gaza. So when you conflate Israel with all Jewish people, you are attaching culpability to them in the same way that Israel's government is attaching culpability to all Palestinians by drawing a false equivalence between them and Hamas. You're no better than the politicians who are saying there are no innocent Palestinians. Again, people are people and governments are governments. Muddying the waters in that regard is downright dangerous. It helps to proliferate hate against these communities that are seeing an increase of hate because of what's happening. And if you can point out the NRA's effects on politicians, you obviously can do the same when it comes to Israel. And spoiler alert, we live in a late-stage capitalist hellscape. Most policy positions of politicians can be explained by simply looking up their donors. Want to know which politicians support Medicare for All? The ones that haven't taken money from the health insurance industry. Want to know which ones are perfectly fine with 68,000 Americans dying every single year due to a lack of health insurance? Well, the ones who took donations from the health industry. Want to know which politicians don't support an increase in the minimum wage? Just look up the donations that they've taken from large multinational corporations who disproportionately employ minimum wage workers, so on and so forth. This is the way that our government functions. And calling that out is important. It's honest. It's not anti-semitic. But those who say that it is anti-semitic are playing a very dangerous game here. And they're inciting hatred against people who have nothing to do with the actions of the Israeli government. But thankfully, lawmakers are starting to call this out. And it's not just progressive, so we're doing that. For example, APAC called out lawmakers who voted against the House resolution standing with Israel, saying, instead of standing with Israel, Republican Thomas Massey is standing with the squad. Now, AOC actually responded to that, pointing out, APAC endorsed scores of January 6th insurrectionists. They are no friend to American democracy. They are one of the more racist and bigoted PACs in Congress as well who disproportionately target members of color. They are an extremist organization that destabilizes US democracy. Now, Corey Bush chimed in, saying, APAC's dark money grift and anti-democracy propping up of insurrectionists are attempts to undermine the will of the people. They spread lies, distort truth, and spend millions of dollars targeting black and brown elected officials working to end hate and injustice. Now, Ilhan Omar also jumped in, adding, APAC literally ran ads with my face next to Hamas Rockets, resulting in a string of threats against my life. When Democratic leadership called them out, they refused to apologize and kept the ads up. What they are doing is insulting and Islamophobic. You cannot claim to be progressive while launching a super PAC that exclusively targets progressives and supports Republicans in the general. Now, to my surprise, a Democrat who wasn't even called out by APAC jumped in. Mark Pocan, who echoed what AOC said, saying, gotta admit, this sums up how many feel about what APAC really is about. Insurrectionists, WTF, no friend of democracy. Now, APAC responded to him by calling him a hypocrite and accusing him of singling them out, but he hit back, saying, what APAC doesn't tell you is they raise money from big Republican donors and spend it in Democratic primaries against Democrats. It's a cynical undemocratic strategy, and since they clearly don't care about dead kids, it's all about backing a conservative Netanyahu position. Now, AOC buttressed Pocan's point, saying, it's past time for us to recognize how toxic of a presence APAC has been in our political system. They actively boost candidates who tried to overthrow the U.S. election and run smear campaigns on members of Congress who stand up for human rights. Enough. Now, on top of that, Justice Democrats chimed in pointing out, APAC endorsed 109 Republican members of Congress that voted to overturn Joe Biden's election, including the current speaker, Mike Johnson. But it gets even better because Thomas Massey, the original target of APAC's tweet, a Republican, by the way, he also jumped in, saying, APAC always gets mad when I put America first. I won't be voting for their $14 billion shakedown of American taxpayers either. Let them know what you think by replying to their post. They are intentionally misrepresenting my intent and the resolution I voted against. Now, in a follow-up tweet, he explained his reasoning for opposing that resolution. Among them, he thought that it was too hawkish and he didn't want to commit to foreign aid that he doesn't support. But most importantly, quote, it contains an open-ended promise of military support that is so broad that it could be interpreted to commit U.S. soldiers to the conflict. U.S. troops should not be engaged in this conflict. And it tends to broaden the conflict to other countries when it would be better to keep the war contained geographically. So APAC thought that they could go after a bunch of lawmakers who opposed them, and these lawmakers would be too afraid to speak out. But they're not. They're fighting back finally. APAC is smearing these lawmakers pretending like they refused to stand with Israel or condemn Hamas when in actuality the resolution that they opposed is much more complex than that. Progressives who opposed it did so because there was no concern for Palestinians. So for Thomas Massey and Progressives to take the gloves off and go after APAC like this in a direct public way, that is huge. It almost feels like a paradigm shift because this is something that politicians avoid because it could be the end of their careers. And what AOC and all of these politicians are doing here is important because it forces Democrats to take APAC money to explain why they're aligned with a far-right organization that contributes to Republicans. And that framing matters because Democratic party voters might not know that APAC is bad because it's law being specifically at the behest of Israel's ultra-nationalist Trumpian government. But if they end up finding out that Democrats are taking money from an organization that also supports insurrectionist Republicans, I mean that could change their perception of this organization as well as Democrats that take money from this organization. Now before you send flowers to Thomas Massey and Mark Pocan, you should probably know that Pocan also does not support a ceasefire despite his denunciation of APAC. And Thomas Massey is basically the inverse of Richie Torres when it comes to the NRA, albeit to a lesser extent. He only admits to taking $2,000 from the NRA, but it's a little bit disingenuous to say that because as Becky Whitehill points out, Citizens United has made it so organizations can give indirectly to politicians through super PACs. So if you look up his donations, you'll see that he's taken thousands more from non-NRA gun interest groups throughout his career. And like the gun lobby, the Israel lobby is comprised of more than just APAC, and campaign contributions alone don't tell us everything. Thomas Massey might not be the most bought-off Republican when it comes to the gun lobby, but he knows that if he suddenly endorsed gun safety legislation, well, the gun lobby could come after him by funding his opponent in the next primary. And knowing this is a possibility has a profound impact on politicians. Take John Federman, for example. As the Intercept reports, quote, during his primary race against Representative Conor Lamb, as the Intercept previously reported, Federman allowed the Democratic majority for Israel, another pro-Israel interest group, to guide his platform on Israel and Palestine. DMFI had spent the campaign season dropping millions of dollars in opposition to progressive Democrats critical of U.S. support for Israel, and Federman succeeded in avoiding their ire. And in order to avoid DMFI and APAC bank rolling his opponent during that primary, he had to make it crystal clear that he would support USA to Israel without any additional conditions. Now, what happens if you don't toe the line of the Israel lobby or you refuse to play ball with them? Well, they could crush you. As Common Dreams explains, APAC and recent U.S. elections have spent millions of dollars to defeat progressive candidates, such as Representative Summer Lee and former Ohio State Senator Nina Turner, both supporters of Palestinian human rights, as well as pro-democracy reforms in the U.S. with mixed success. And the success was mixed there because Summer Lee ended up winning despite all the money from the Israel lobby spent against her. But Nina Turner, however, ended up losing. Now, at one point, there was a poll that showed that Nina Turner had a 35-point lead over her opponent. And her opponent, Chantelle Brown, knew that if she was going to win, she needed more money fast. So what did she do? Well, as the Intercept explains, she low-key pleaded with super PACs to throw her a life vest. In particular, she conspicuously shared quotes on her website about how she was very pro-Israel. And this was a shameless attempt to solicit contributions from the Israel lobby. But guess what? It worked. She got the money and she won. Now, the same thing could happen to Corey Bush. In fact, it's happening right now before our very eyes, because as The Washington Post explains, St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell announced this week he was dropping his months-long bid to unseat one of the country's most outspoken Republican senators, Josh Hawley, to launch a primary campaign to oust fellow Democrat Representative Corey Bush. When asked to explain his switch, Bell pointed to Bush's criticism of Israel. Now, as Twitter user Sean points out here, this line of attack against Bush is his opening pitch to APAC and DMFI. And he's correct about that. I mean, why try to defeat an insurrectionist Republican when it's easier to raise thousands of dollars automatically by pledging your undying loyalty to Israel? See, him declaring loyalty to Israel isn't going to matter in the Senate race against Josh Hawley because Josh Hawley also pledged his undying loyalty to Israel. But where it could really make a difference is against the progressive deemed the enemy of APAC, Corey Bush. That money could be make or break. Corey Bush is in legitimate danger here. So this is what we're up against. This is why Democrats and Republicans have no red line when it comes to Israel's war crimes in Gaza. Now you can also blame ignorance and cowardice. I think this is the case for some politicians like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. But for the most part, I think most politicians who toe the line, they're doing so because they were paid to do so by the Israeli lobby. Palestinians just don't have comparable lobbying power. So this is why politicians in both parties turn a blind eye to their suffering and pretend as if they don't exist. But times are changing and public sentiment is shifting before our very eyes. The majority of Americans who now support a ceasefire, they're going to wonder why our government isn't supporting the common sense position. And they're soon going to learn that it's because money in politics is again the lowest common denominator. And in the same way that the NRA pays Republicans to do nothing about gun violence, APAC pays politicians in both parties to do nothing about Israel's war crimes in Gaza.