On October 27, just twenty days into the war in Gaza, Congresswoman Cori Bush introduced a resolution calling for a cease-fire. In the months since, many have smeared her as an antisemite or a supporter of Hamas, but a quick glance at the remarks she delivered in the House that day — which were subsequently reprinted in Jacobin — shows that these allegations are pure nonsense. She repeatedly talked about the plight of the Israeli hostages, reasoning that it’s essential to de-escalate the conflict so they can be brought home to their families. She said, “We strongly condemn Hamas for its appalling attack against Israelis.” Over and over again, she referenced the humanity of “Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Muslims” and used phrases like “my Jewish and Palestinian siblings.”

Her crime, in the eyes of the Democratic establishment, wealthy pro-Israel donors, and much of the media, is that she takes the humanity of all of these groups equally seriously. For Bush, condemnation of Hamas, while correct, can’t be used as an excuse to support the American-backed “mass murder of Palestinians.” That would violate her “strong belief that all human life is equally precious.”

This is the belief that so infuriated the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which Jacobin’s Liza Featherstone aptly calls a “pro-genocide money machine.” To punish Bush, AIPAC dangled massive amounts of money before anyone who would primary her. A challenger rose to the occasion, and with AIPAC’s endless resources at his disposal, he won.