{"id":1310187,"date":"2023-11-02T17:15:54","date_gmt":"2023-11-02T17:15:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/?p=449796"},"modified":"2023-11-02T17:15:54","modified_gmt":"2023-11-02T17:15:54","slug":"dick-durbin-aipacs-first-successful-recruit-becomes-first-senator-to-call-for-gaza-ceasefire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/11\/02\/dick-durbin-aipacs-first-successful-recruit-becomes-first-senator-to-call-for-gaza-ceasefire\/","title":{"rendered":"Dick Durbin, AIPAC’s First Successful Recruit, Becomes First Senator to Call for Gaza Ceasefire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Democrat Dick Durbin<\/span> became the first senator to call for a ceasefire in the Israel\u2013Gaza war on Thursday, as Israel\u2019s bombing and ground campaign picks up in ferocity. Durbin, speaking on CNN<\/a>, said that a ceasefire must come along with the release of hostages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it is,\u201d the Illinois senator and Judiciary Committee chair said when asked if it was time for a ceasefire, a term that has been off-limits for the Biden administration<\/a> and the vast<\/a> majority of Democrats<\/a>. \u201cAt least in the context of both sides agreeing. For example, the release of those who have been kidnapped should be part of this \u2014 immediate release. That should be the beginning of it,\u201d Durbin said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAn effort should be made to engage in conversation between the Israelis and Palestinians,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Durbin\u2019s willingness to tiptoe ahead of his colleagues is all the more surprising given his own electoral history. Durbin, as a House candidate in 1982, was the first successful recruit of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, better known as AIPAC, to beat an incumbent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

AIPAC reorganized itself in the late 1970s and early 1980s to flex its political muscle, setting a strategy to organize a national network of donors. They first tested their theory of the case on Republican representative Paul Findley. They viewed Findley as too sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. AIPAC targeted Findley in both the GOP primary and the general election. A young Rahm Emanuel took time off from college to volunteer for his first campaign that year, becoming chief fundraiser for the Democrat challenging Findley, raising some three-quarters of a million dollars. It was the first attempt to unseat a member of Congress by fundraising on the issue of support for Israel, and Findley survived, but the model was in place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1982, AIPAC recruited Dick Durbin to challenge Findley and helped make the race the costliest ever in Illinois. \u201cIf I hadn\u2019t been a persistent critic of [Israeli Prime Minister] Menachem Begin, I wouldn\u2019t have had a real contest this year,\u201d Findley told the Washington Post<\/a> then. This time, he lost by less than 1 percent, and the message was sent that showing sympathy for the Palestinians or wavering in one\u2019s full support of Israel could be politically costly, even in districts like Findley\u2019s, with a significant Arab population. (Bridgeview, Illinois, is known as \u201cLittle Palestine.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The next cycle, AIPAC recruited Democrat Paul Simon to take on Illinois Sen. Charles Percy, whom the group also deemed too sympathetic to Palestinians; Simon won. Thomas Dine, AIPAC\u2019s executive director, called it a warning. \u201cJews in America, from coast to coast, gathered to oust Percy,\u201d Dine said at the time<\/a>. \u201cAnd American politicians \u2014 those who hold public positions now, and those who aspire \u2014 got the message.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2015, AIPAC and Durbin were on opposite sides of the Iran deal, with Durbin organizing Democratic colleagues to support it and AIPAC reportedly spending<\/a> $20 million in ads against it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Research for this article is drawn from Ryan Grim\u2019s book \u201c<\/em>The Squad: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution<\/em><\/a>,\u201d available for preorder now.<\/em><\/p>\n

The post Dick Durbin, AIPAC’s First Successful Recruit, Becomes First Senator to Call for Gaza Ceasefire<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on The Intercept<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Durbin\u2019s willingness to tiptoe ahead of his colleagues is all the more surprising given his own electoral history.<\/p>\n

The post Dick Durbin, AIPAC\u2019s First Successful Recruit, Becomes First Senator to Call for Gaza Ceasefire<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,340],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310187"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/93"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1310187"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1311884,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310187\/revisions\/1311884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1310187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1310187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1310187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}