After Jamaal Bowman's defeat in New York, AOC and The Squad accuse AIPAC of being "A Republican organization"

Rep. Jamaal Bowman was recently defeated in his district's Democratic primary by George Latimer.  His opponent, the current Westchester County executive, ran as a more moderate candidate in support of the pro-assistance option for Israel in its fight against the terrorist group Hamas.  In order to justify the heavy defeat, some 20 percentage points, the congressman and his progressive allies targeted the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

The aforementioned group intervened in the race and shelled out millions of dollars to defeat Bowman because of his anti-Israel rhetoric in the House of Representatives.

As reported by POLITICO, "a major pro-Israel group spent more than $14 million on television ads to unseat him.  And as the results came in, it became clear that AIPAC and its super PAC United Democracy Project had succeeded in making an example of the two-term member of Congress for routinely criticizing the Israeli offensive in Gaza."

"A Republican group."

After the fall of the first member of The Squad, the grumbling soon followed.  The first to speak out was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), who took direct aim at AIPAC for her colleague's defeat.

"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 told a group of reporters on Capitol Hill.

"It makes it much harder for us to coalition-build and to create the winning coalitions. We need that energy and coalition of a progressive base in order to make sure that we win statewide and federally, and Republicans are pouring money to finance these [primary fights] for a reason," she added.

Congresswoman Cori Bush, a member of The Squad who also faces a tough primary challenge in her district, added to AOC's rhetoric.

"AIPAC and their allies — backed by far-right Donald Trump megadonors — poured a tidal wave of cash into this primary race showing us just how desperate these billionaire extremists are in their attempts to buy our democracy, promote their own gain, and silence the voices of progress and justice.  There should be no doubt about the need to get Big Money out of politics," she wrote in a statement.

What is AIPAC?

The lobbying group created in the mid-20th century works to bring about policies promoting a favorable relationship with the Jewish state.  On their website they state, "we encourage the U.S. government to enact specific policies that create a strong, enduring and mutually beneficial relationship with our ally Israel".

On his daily show, Ben Shapiro came out to clarify that the organization is far from being Republican and further explained why he decided to weigh in on these Democratic primaries.

"There´s lot of talk about the amount of money that AIPAC put into this race. So AIPAC is the American Israel public affairs committee, it is not in fact a branch of the Israeli government. It has frequently disagreed with the Israeli government, most famously in 2015, when the Israeli government was pushing very very hard against the Iran deal and APAC, which is in fact dominated at the top by political Democrats, did nothing about the Iran deal," the popular conservative commentator began.

To then explain the funding against Bowman, Shapiro took attacked the caliber of the progressive representative.

"AIPAC put a bunch of money into this race. Why did they put a bunch of money into this race? They did it because Jamal Bowman was already vulnerable. Political Money Follows you into a district when you yourself are a crappy candidate for your District. POLITICO points out that this race, while it was about Israel for a lot of Jewish voters, it was not entirely about Israel. it turns out that Jamaal Bowman is just a terrible Congress person", he declared.

Latimer optimistically celebrated his win in NY

As for Latimer, he celebrated his victory in New York and gave assurances that he will listen to the mandate delivered by the voters, given that he is expected to easily prevail in the November general election.

"When I was a working class kid in Mt. Vernon, I watched my parents strive to provide me with the best life possible.  When I graduated from high school at Memorial Field, my mom cried.  She never dreamed I would be here.  But tonight the voters spoke and I'm proud to be your Democratic candidate for #NY16," he wrote on his X account after learning the results.

At the same time, in an interview with CNN he stressed the fact that his progressive opponent had received a lot of funding from progressive, non-New York City sources.