Zohran's Win Was About Breaking the Israel Lobby's Occupation of Our Politics

For years Americans have been told there was nothing they can do to challenge the supremacy of the Israel lobby. We were told in the 2024 election that it was impossible to have a presidential candidate who opposed the genocide in Gaza. Denied a voice in Washington, activists who organized the street were vilified by politicians and talking heads with accusations of being antisemites (nevermind that many of the protesters against the genocide are Jewish). Academics who dared to write op-eds questioning Israel’s war and America’s support were labeled terrorist sympathizers and abducted to be deported. Organizations that worked on for a new policy in the Middle East – against collective punishment, against war, in favor of diplomacy – were called Iranian government proxies. Lawmakers were told that if they opposed weapons shipments to Israel or spoke out against war and sanctions, they would be buried under tens of millions of dollars in attack ads and lose their next election.

The message was simple: submit to the Lobby or pay the price.For many, Zohran Mamdani’s victory was about breaking that expectation.

The Israel lobby’s occupation of our politics is not total – and it can be challenged and defeated.

Mamdani, by organizing disaffected young voters to take on old guard Republicans and Democrats while refusing to back down on his anti-genocide position, delivered a powerful playbook for how to do so.

The campaign against Mamdani followed a familiar playbook that many of us have been subjected to. Right-wing influencers and outlets called him a terrorist. Trump, this time not needing to see a birth certificate, threatened to deport him. Liberal corporate media insinuated he was an antisemite because he would not pledge to visit Israel or ignore International Criminal Court warrants.

Usually, these tactics work. The intention is not to debate actual policy; it is to make anyone questioning the Israel-first order radioactive. And yet – Mamdani did not bend.

There was no Obama-to-AIPAC moment. No ritual capitulation to prove that even “change candidates” must ultimately accommodate the Lobby. Mamdani refused to be shamed out of his identity or his convictions.

He did not win by relying on billionaires and corrupting PACs — he won by organizing over 90,000 volunteers and speaking truth to power consistently and unflinchingly. And he won resoundingly.

His victory is about more than one city. It is the first serious shift in a political paradigm that collapsed in the 2024 election and left millions of Americans disillusioned. In my conversations with grassroots volunteers and community members, more than ever before, the prevailing sentiment the past two years has been one of complete disillusionment in our democracy – a sense that ordinary people did not have political agency and cannot have real influence over decisions that shape their lives. That sense of powerlessness is not new – it is the same feeling that many Americans felt during the Iraq war that ebbed into Obama’s underdog victory over Hilary Clinton. It’s central to the phenomenon that helped usher in Trump, who promised to take a sledgehammer to a broken and unresponsive system.

For many, the refusal of both parties to simply be honest and acknowledge the scale of human suffering in Gaza and the complicity of our government was a new breaking point.

Mamdani’s win is proof that there is another path.

The shift is already visible. Senate candidates – from bold challengers to establishment incumbents – are now openly rejecting AIPAC money. In New York – where AIPAC and its blue-veneered offspring DMFI spent a record $20 million to unseat Jamaal Bowman last cycle – serious candidates have announced primary challenges to Israel Lobby darlings like Ritchie Torres and Dan Goldman. Across the map, our elected officials’ slavish devotion to an Israel-first Middle East policy is becoming a public, moral question that finally poses more political costs than benefits.

The task now is to scale this into a movement that is national, durable, and powerful enough to restore political agency and redefine what is possible in American public life.

To be sure, the power of the Israel lobby will not be broken overnight. The Lobby will now try to isolate Mamdani and make him a cautionary tale so that “moderates” can claim his formula was ultimately a losing one. But victories like this have a ripple effect. The reason that AIPAC and DMFI primary lawmakers like Bowman or Cori Bush or Andy Levin is not to remove a few pro-peace votes. It is to send a chilling effect through the halls of Congress – submit to the Lobby or lose your office. But now ordinary Americans are beginning to send their own message to those who hope to represent us: Submit to the Lobby and we will organize and defeat you.