Representative Summer Lee of Pennsylvania, who joined calls for a cease-fire, has become one of several progressive lawmakers facing new pressure from primary challengers.
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“Israel is one issue; it’s an important issue to a subsection of our community,” she said. “But to pretend it’s the only issue is insulting and damaging.” ... Ms. Lee said Jews were “10 percent of our district, but we also have Muslim, Arab, Palestinian constituents who are afraid for their families and their lives.” ...
Such talk has already drawn Ms. Lee a challenger ahead of the April 23 primary: Bhavini Patel, a 29-year-old member of the borough council in suburban Edgewood, who suggested as the setting for an interview a cafe in Squirrel Hill, the heavily Jewish neighborhood of Pittsburgh where the Tree of Life shooting took place.
Ms. Patel’s biography could be her calling card: The daughter of Indian immigrants, she worked in her mother’s Gujarati food truck before becoming the first of her family to go to college. But since Hamas’s slaughter of 1,400 Israelis, Ms. Patel said she had been spending her time with the voters of Squirrel Hill, talking about a conflict half a world away.
“Something that keeps coming up in my conversations is that Congresswoman Lee continues to equivocate,” she said. “We’re responding to something that is evil — the murder, rape, kidnapping of children, men, women and grandparents. There shouldn’t be any equivocation on this.”
Ms. Patel’s could be one of many Democratic primary challenges buoyed by the confrontations between staunch defenders of Israel and lawmakers promoting Palestinian rights. In Minneapolis,
Sarah Gad, a defense and civil rights lawyer, has challenged Representative Ilhan Omar, the former Somali refugee
known for her clashes with Jewish colleagues.
In the northern suburbs of New York, George Latimer, the Westchester County executive, is contemplating a challenge to Representative Jamaal Bowman,
who defeated the staunchly pro-Israel chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Eliot Engel, in 2020.
And progressive organizations are girding for possible challenges to Representatives Cori Bush of Missouri, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and others, funded from the deep pockets of AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups.
“They
spent a historic amount of money to intervene, and try and buy primaries in 2022,” said Usamah Andrabi, spokesman for Justice Democrats, the liberal insurgent group that helped elect many of the progressives now on the primary target list.
“I think we will see a doubling and tripling down, because no one in the Democratic leadership is trying to stop them.”
Officially, AIPAC is neutral for now.
“There will be a time for political action, but right now our priority is building and sustaining congressional support for Israel’s fight to permanently dismantle Hamas,” said the group’s spokesman, Marshall Wittmann.
But AIPAC’s jabs have already begun. Responding to a
post by Mr. Bowman extolling his “Ceasefire Now” resolution,
the lobbying group called it “a transparent ploy to paint Israel as the aggressor and allow Hamas to control Gaza.” Hitting Ms. Lee, AIPAC
wrote on X, “Emboldening a group that massacres Israelis and uses Palestinians as human shields will never achieve peace.”
