File : US Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.)
in an interview with CBS, Massie said pro-Israel groups have “tried to buy my vote for 14 years, and it was never for sale”.
Thomas Massie, the Republican congressman who voted down foreign aid packages and heavily criticised pro-Israel lobbying groups’ influence in US politics, lost his primary race in Kentucky on Tuesday.
It was the most expensive US primary race of all time as outside groups – namely pro-Israel political action committees – poured millions of dollars into anti-Massie ad campaigns to oust him from Washington.
“Congratulations to US Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein for defeating anti-Israel incumbent Thomas Massie!” the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) posted to X on Tuesday.
“Pro-Israel Americans are proud to back candidates who support a strong [US-Israel] alliance and help defeat those who work to undermine it. Being pro-Israel is good policy and good politics!”
68-year-old Gallrein, who has never held elected office before, will now be the Republican candidate for the House of Representatives in Kentucky’s 4th District, come November’s midterm elections.
He had previously pledged his loyalty to President Donald Trump. In return, Trump gave Gallrein his endorsement.
Massie, the president said on Monday, is “the worst congressman in the long and storied history of the Republican party”. Massie himself has voted to back Trump’s agenda more than 90 percent of the time, and they both agree on issues important to the conservative movement, such as ousting immigrants and prohibiting abortion.
But Massie’s insistence that the entirety of the secret files on Jeffrey Epstein be released. potentially compromising Trump himself, was likely the last straw for the president.
Massie had already spent the past year making his critical views on Israel known, and refusing to take money from groups whose sole agenda is the Israeli state.
Antisemitism accusation
The Associated Press called the race for Gallrein less than an hour after the polls closed on Tuesday evening.
Former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, who resigned in March after saying he could not support Israel taking the US into a war on Iran, praised Massie on X after the results were announced.
US congressman says pro-Israel groups behind 95 percent of funding against him
“God bless Thomas Massie. He walks out of this with his honor intact. He’s a patriot & kept his integrity. As long as the voters give their votes to whoever can run the most ads we will have politicians who are purchased by foreign governments & corporate interests,” Kent said.
On Monday, in an interview with CBS, Massie said pro-Israel groups have “tried to buy my vote for 14 years, and it was never for sale”.
“No country is special, and no country deserves my constituents’ taxpayer dollars,” he added.
“So I have never voted for foreign aid to Egypt, to Syria, to Israel, or to Ukraine – but the ones in Israel, since they’re the biggest recipients of it, that makes them a little bit mad.”
“The lobbying that happens on Capitol Hill should be reported if it’s a foreign country, whether it’s Great Britain, Australia, Turkey, Qatar, or Israel,” said the Kentucky Republican.
CBS reporter Ed O’Keefe then asked Massie – twice – if he’s an antisemite.
“Oh hell no,” Massie responded.
Anti-Zionism, he said, is not antisemitism.
“It does Jewish Americans a big disfavor to equate the two.”
Pro-Israel lobbying groups have succeeded in ousting members of Congress from office before, including Cory Bush of Missouri and Jamaal Bowman of New York.
In 1962, the John F. Kennedy administration, directed by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, ordered AIPAC’s predecessor, the American Zionist Council (AZC), to register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The Justice Department determined the AZC was indirectly funded by the Israeli government to influence U.S. policy
However, before the demand could be strictly enforced, John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and the administration’s pressure eased. Facing continued legal pressure from the Department of Justice, the AZC shifted its lobbying functions to a spin-off organization named the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which was formed in 1963.
Nearly three years after John F. Kennedy was assassinated , his brother Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated too. Many linked both assassinations to AIPAC
MEE
