The American “Israel” Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), for decades one of Washington’s most powerful pro-Israeli occupation lobbying groups, is steadily losing influence as it maintains its unconditional support for “Israel” and moves increasingly closer to the Republican Party, even as criticism of the Israeli occupation entity’s war on the Gaza Strip grows. The shift is threatening the group’s traditional standing within the Democratic Party.
In an opinion article in The New York Times, Eric Alterman, a professor of English at Brooklyn College and a longtime observer of “Israel”and American Jewish affairs, argues that AIPAC’s era of influence has come to an end. He says the group has become a liability for Democratic politicians and a source of tension for American Jews, adding that rejecting its money has emerged as one of the positions that brings Democrats together.
From ally to liability
Alterman notes that unconditional support for “Israel” was once an almost universally held position in Congress, thanks in large part to AIPAC and its bipartisan efforts. But Israel’s war on Gaza following the October 7, 2023, attacks changed the political landscape as Israel’s popularity declined.
According to a 2026 NBC poll, only 32% of American voters view “Israel” favorably, with the figure falling to 13% among Democrats.
The shift has also extended to American Jews themselves. In a 2025 Washington Post poll, 61% said they believed “Israel” had committed war crimes in Gaza, while about 40% said they believed “Israel” had committed genocide.
Alterman recalls that AIPAC was established in 1953 to defend “Israel” and secure US financial, military, and diplomatic support for the country. By the 1960s, one senator had described it as the most powerful foreign-policy lobbying group in the United States.
The article argues that the most significant turning point came as AIPAC gradually shifted to the right, particularly after the assassination of the Zionist Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 and the collapse of the peace process. The organization’s partisan alignment deepened in 2015, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed Congress and attacked the agreement over Iran’s nuclear program. AIPAC and its allies spent nearly $30 million seeking to defeat the deal but failed.
Israel is at risk of civil war or state collapse, a classified CIA assessment warns, as years of genocide in Gaza and war in Lebanon and Iran deepen political, economic, and social fractures within the country. "CIA experts pointed to a volatile mix of pressures converging ahead of Israel’s elections on October 27: economic crisis and soaring military spending; heavily armed veterans returning from prolonged combat, many carrying serious psychological trauma; growing fury over ultra-Orthodox men who are exempt from military service; escalating settler violence in the occupied West Bank; and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fighting to hold onto power and igniting a constitutional crisis. " – via @DropSiteNews
— AIPAC Tracker (@TrackAIPAC) October 5, 2026
Partisan alignment
Since then, the organization has moved closer to the Republican Party. In 2021, it established a political action committee that supported more than 100 Republican candidates, including lawmakers who refused to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The use of conservative money to defeat liberal candidates in Democratic primary elections angered progressives and reinforced a growing perception among young American Jews that AIPAC does not represent them.
Alterman cites several examples of AIPAC’s strategy backfiring. The group spent millions of dollars trying to defeat Democratic candidates, only for some of them to lose to more left-wing candidates who reject unconditional support for “Israel.” Some Democratic politicians have also announced that they would forgo AIPAC money, fearing that their association with the group could become an electoral liability.
The article concludes that AIPAC’s commitment to an “Israel first” approach, coupled with its alliance with a party whose positions on race, immigration, the economy, and democracy conflict with those of broad segments of American Jewry, has cost it influence within the Democratic Party and could also weaken its standing among Republicans.
If you want, I can also adapt this into a more Reuters/AP-style version, a more analytical newspaper style, or a sharper digital-news style while preserving the same facts.
Source: Al-Jazeera Net