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July 7th, 2021 
Awake Goy 
Nina Turner is leading in the Democratic race for the open House seat in Ohio. The primary election is August 3, and polls show the former Sanders spokesperson and state senator up by “double digits,” says the Hill. Turner has the endorsement of the Plain Dealer and the Cleveland mayor, per news reports, as well as the backing of several members of the progressive “Squad” in Congress.
The Democratic Party establishment is plainly afraid that Turner will take the seat once held by Marcia Fudge (now Biden’s HUD secretary) and grow the ranks of the Squad in Congress. So it has lined up behind Shontel Brown, a county councilperson and former Democratic Party chair. Brown has the endorsement of Hillary Clinton and House Majority Whip James Clyburn.
And Israel is at the core of the establishment concerns. Not that they want you to know that.
Last week a crew of pro-Israel Congresspeople endorsed Shontel Brown — Reps. Josh Gottheimer, Ted Deutch, David Trone, and Brad Shneider. Their statements as quoted by Jewish Insider did not mention Israel. JI had this to say about Trone:
Trone, a co-founder of Total Wine & More — which he says is the largest retailer of Israeli wine in the U.S. — has established a reputation for himself as a vehement critic of the BDS movement. He has also been an AIPAC “minyan” donor, which requires a minimum annual gift of $100,000, in the past.
The Israel lobby groups Jewish Democratic Council of America and Democratic Majority for Israel have also endorsed Shontel Brown; and last week DMFI released an ad for Brown that, as Michael Arria reported, doesn’t mention Israel at all. Look at that ad:
You see that it is paid for by DMFI Pac, which is responsible for the content. But DMFI is not spelled out by its full name, Democratic Majority for Israel. And there is not a word about Israel in the ad. Isn’t that a hidden agenda?
And by the way, Israel is nowhere on Shontel Brown’s list of issues– “priorities” for Ohio voters.
That’s because both Shontel Brown and Democratic Majority for Israel know that Israel is not a very popular issue in the Democratic base. Just a year ago, Jamaal Bowman beat a leading supporter of Israel, Eliot Engel, in New York in an urban/suburban district not so different from Ohio 11. DMFI poured money into the Engel campaign.
And support for sanctions on Israel is evidently burgeoning among Democrats since Israel’s last onslaught on Gaza in May.
Last week when Jewish Democratic Council of America endorsed Brown, they also played down the Israel angle.
“We are proud to endorse Shontel Brown in the OH-11 primary because she shares our Jewish and Democratic values on a wide range of issues, including access to affordable, quality health care, ensuring jobs that pay fair wages, supporting public education, taking action to end gun violence, protecting our democracy, and ensuring equity and justice for all.”
The two-state solution came in in the third paragraph.
Israel is obviously important to fundraising in the Democratic Party. As the Intercept reported in May, Brown is “low-key pleading” to pro-Israel superpacs to try to raise money, in part through the pro-Israel endorsements on her website. When DMFI endorsed Shontel Brown in February, they declared that she was pro-Israel; and Brown duly promised openly to “strengthen” the U.S.-Israel relationship.
DMFI was naked then about the fact that it is trying to raise a lot of money for Shontel Brown. “You can show @ShontelMBrown that pro-Israel Democrats have her back & donate to her campaign at DMFI PAC’s website.”
Nina Turner has been open in her criticism of Israel, at times. Though Israel is not on her list of issues on her site, in May she retweeted a message against Israeli “apartheid” from the young Jewish group IfNotNow, along with the message, “Solidarity is a verb” and a clenched-fist emoji.
Not that Turner is making a lot of the DMFI endorsement of her opponent. In a fundraising message that a donor got from her yesterday, her campaign decried the “dark-money super PACs… blanketing the airwaves with ads to try to stop us,” but it was silent on where that dark money is coming from. Oh– big oil and big pharma and the establishment.
Not to mention the fact that corporate lobbyists from Big Oil and Big Pharma are hosting high-dollar fundraisers for our opponent….
The sad reality of the situation right now is that the establishment will do everything within their power (including raising and spending an astronomical amount of money) to try to stop our people-powered movement.
I’m disappointed that Israel is not an explicit issue in the campaign so far. It should be one. Because Democratic voters have opinions on the subject. But you can understand why Shontel Brown doesn’t want it to be an issue. And why the Democratic Majority for Israel likes to go around as DMFI. They know that the Democratic base has left the building.
h/t Michael Arria and James North.
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