As for his recent record in Congress, Rep. Pappas, the Democrat nominee for Senate, opted to neither support nor oppose a House amendment that sought to cut $3.3 billion in aid to Israel each year. By Sharon Udasin, JTANew Hampshire Democrats on Tuesday chose their nominees for multiple U.S. House and Senate seats in primaries where opposition to the Israeli government took center stage and was a given among most candidates.Rep. Chris Pappas won the Democratic Senate nomination, defeating progressive challenger Karishma Manzur roughly 62% to 36%, and will face Republican former Sen. John E. Sununu in November.In the 1st Congressional District, Stefany Shaheen narrowly edged out Maura Sullivan, 37% to 35%, to win the Democratic nomination, setting up a general election against Republican Anthony DiLorenzo. Rep. Maggie Goodlander won renomination in the 2nd District, defeating state lawmaker Paige Beauchemin.Three Granite State races have highlighted both the U.S.-Israel relationship and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobbying group, in recent weeks.While the candidates seem to share near-unanimous disdain for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, their positions on the Jewish state itself have varied, with moderates asserting Israel’s right to defend itself and left-leaning candidates laying most if not all blame for the conflict on Israel.“It is a mark of the extent to which in virtually every Democratic primary, Israel has become the bogeyman for Democratic voters,” Jeff Robbins, a Boston-based attorney and former Senate investigative counsel, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.Robbins, who served as delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Commission under President Bill Clinton, said some candidates are increasingly seeking to show their base “that they are more anti-Netanyahu, anti-AIPAC and, yes, anti-Israel.”With Jeanne Shaheen not seeking reelection this year, Pappas sought to fill her Senate seat, as did progressive Karishma Manzur, a medical scientist who holds a doctorate in biochemistry.As Pappas and Manzur crossed paths on the campaign trail, their talking points frequently featured the Israeli government and AIPAC.“Benjamin Netanyahu’s got to go,” Pappas said at a debate last week, held by local news station WMUR.“I hope he’s drummed out of office. He’s not a reliable partner for the United States. He has perpetuated the cycle of violence and war, and we have to reset our foreign policy with respect to Israel.”When asked by WMUR anchor Steve Bottari whether he’d “ever fully agree with those younger voters who demand 100% opposition to Israel,” Pappas had a softer response.“What’s important is that both Israelis and Palestinians have security and an opportunity to live in peace and coexist side by side,” he said. “I support a two-state solution.”Pappas expressed support for increasing aid to the Palestinians and ensuring that the “very fragile ceasefire” persists, with hopes that Israel’s military would withdraw from Gaza and Hamas would abandon its arms.As for his recent record in Congress, Pappas opted to neither support nor oppose a House amendment that sought to cut $3.3 billion in aid to Israel each year.He instead chose to just be “present” during the vote on the legislation, authored by Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky.Had he been in the Senate, Pappas said he would have supported legislation that sought to restrict arms sales to Israel.Pappas described the bills, authored by Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, as tools “to prevent 2,000-pound bombs and military bulldozers from being delivered to Israel’s war effort.”Both current senators, Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, voted to restrict these sales.Manzur took her criticisms of Israel a step farther, describing Netanyahu as “addicted to killing,” accusing him of using U.S. troops, money and weapons to pursue his agenda.She stressed that U.S. foreign policy should not hinge upon “the whims of a foreign genocidal government.”“Benjamin Netanyahu has almost 90% control of our Congress as well as the White House,” she added.Manzur appeared somewhat flustered, however, when Bottari questioned her on past comments about Israel’s response to the Hamas invasion of Oct. 7, 2023.Her remarks, he alleged, involved her saying that it was “absolute propaganda that Israel was taking action to defend itself in the aftermath of the October 7th attacks.”When Bottari requested that Manzur explain “why Israel was wrong to respond militarily to a terrorist attack,” she first expressed doubt that she made such a statement but then clarified that she was likely disputing Israeli claims of defense.“If you look at October 7th as the starting point, then you might say, Israel is defending itself,” she said. “But you should actually look at the 100 years of war between the two people.”“Pappas’ opponent—like so many Democratic primary challengers elsewhere—has based her challenge to a meaningful degree on her opposition to Israel,” said Robbins, who also previously chaired the New England Board of the Anti-Defamation League.“Even if she does not fully succeed, it is her opposition to support for Israel that has enabled her to come out of nowhere to mount what is at least a plausible challenge to Pappas,” he added.Not all New Hampshire candidates felt that Israel has no claim to self-defense. Goodlander, the House incumbent who defeated Beauchemin, affirmed at a debate last week “that Israel has a right to defend itself.”Responding to a question about how to draw the line between antisemitism and opposition to Israel, Goodlander emphasized that “Israel has the right to exist,” adding that as antisemitism rises, this “is something that has to be repeated.”But she then pivoted to Netanyahu, slamming his government as “disconnected from the basic values of democracy and the basic interests of the United States of America.”Recognizing that the U.S. and Israel share common foes, she accused him of “empowering those very same brutal and determined enemies.”For this reason, Goodlander explained, she voted in favor of the Massie House amendment to cut $3.3 billion in annual aid to Israel.She said that given the “absolutely unacceptable scale” of suffering in Gaza, she could not vote against it.Her opponent, Beauchemin, said that claiming that attacks on Israel and on AIPAC are antisemitic is “a lazy concept.”“AIPAC funds the majority of our Congress people on both sides of the aisle,” she said, calling out her opponent as one of these beneficiaries.Goodlander, who denied these allegations, is one of several New Hampshire Democrats recently accused of accepting AIPAC funds because individuals donated both to her campaign and to the pro-Israel lobby.The debate moderator, WMUR’s political director Adam Sexton, then asked Goodlander how she feels about Democrats “hunting” and “shaming” those who donated to both AIPAC and her.The congresswoman replied by warning of “a dangerous and slippery slope” and specifically called out Track AIPAC, a group that compiles Federal Election Commission data to flag pro-Israel campaign contributions.She also said she has given away any money she previously received from donors who had also contributed to the lobby.Track AIPAC maintains that Goodlander has received $222,000 from pro-Israel PACs over the course of her career.The database shows that Pappas has taken in $823,000.Critics of Track AIPAC say that its criteria for identifying groups with AIPAC are overly broad; it also targets candidates who accept money from J Street.Turning to Beauchemin, Sexton noted that she, too, might receive donations from individuals who contribute to causes she doesn’t support and asked whether she finds it problematic to target just one group.Beauchemin responded that “no, it’s a corrupt organization,” adding that “if you want money out of politics, you should not be taking money from AIPAC. ”The lobby has rejected comparisons to corporate PACs, noting that it is membership driven, and claims to be transparent about its donations.AIPAC was also a hot-button topic in the neighboring district, where Shaheen repeatedly accused Sullivan of taking such funds.In this case as well, the allegations were based on the fact that some individuals who donated to Sullivan’s campaign may have also given to AIPAC.Shaheen alleged that Sullivan raised 90% of her campaign funds from outside the state, amassing more money “from AIPAC contributors than from people in New Hampshire,” in a late August interview with Sexton from WMUR.“We have independent reporters who have validated and verified that like clockwork, these contributions have come into her campaign,” Shaheen said. “They have been bundled and she’s been hiding it.”Sexton then cited past comments from Sullivan, who had suggested that singling out donors with Jewish-sounding names could be borderline antisemitic, and asked her to address this claim.In response, Shaheen described that stance as “outrageous,” noting her endorsements from the liberal Zionist group J Street and “people who identify as Jewish.”Evaluating this particular matchup, Robbins said he observed Shaheen “staking out in recent weeks sharper anti-Israel rhetoric than Sullivan in an effort to hold her lead”—a strategy that ultimately carried her to a narrow win.On the same day as the interview with Shaheen, WMUR aired a conversation with Sullivan, who denounced her opponent’s accusations as “lies” and stressed that she hadn’t “taken a dime from AIPAC, or any corporate PAC.”When asked if she planned to return funds from those who also gave to AIPAC, Sullivan said she was “not focused on that” and was instead “running and fighting for the people of New Hampshire.”She expressed her disappointment that Shaheen “has resorted to these attacks,” which she described as “malicious” and “desperate.”Sullivan did, however, express her “deep concerns with the conduct of the Netanyahu government,” noting her previous calls for cessation of settler activity in Judea and Samaria and an end to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.“The U.S.-Israel relationship needs to be reset,” Sullivan said.In a debate last week, the two women joined three other candidates on stage, launching into a discussion as to why there has been so much focus on campaign donations.Shaheen and Sullivan reiterated their previous comments, with the former pressing her on the claim that Sullivan received “AIPAC bundle donations” and the latter disputing these accusations as lies.“I don’t have any support from AIPAC,” Sullivan said. “They’re not bundling for me, nor did they endorse my campaign.”The post New Hampshire Democrat congressional candidates compete to out-criticize one another on Israel, AIPAC appeared first on World Israel News.