Massachusetts Representative Jake Auchincloss, one of 103 Democrats who voted to cut off military aid to Israel last month, says the pro-Israel lobby's decision to strip his fundraising page from its website is a mark of independence, not a liability. Auchincloss, a Marine veteran representing the district with New England's largest Jewish population, has spent the weeks since that vote defending it in synagogues across his district. He joined Newsweek's The 1600 podcast with host Carlo Versano to explain why, and to make the case that criticizing Israel's current government is not the same thing as abandoning it.
"It was a constructive conversation," Auchincloss said of the response from constituents. He has since visited five additional temples in his district to talk through the vote directly with the pro-Israel community. Auchincloss was one of 103 Democrats, alongside a single Republican, Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie, to vote against continued military aid to Israel.
AIPAC responded by removing his fundraising link from its website, a move Versano suggested was becoming something of a status symbol in Democratic primaries. Auchincloss shrugged it off. "I don't take positions based on outside interests," he said.
"People want to support me because of my positions." He compared the pressures of the job to a contact sport. "I play in the NFL in Washington, D.C., as a contact sport," he said. "You can't be thin-skinned, and you can't be looking over your shoulder." Auchincloss was careful to separate his vote from any broader retreat from Israel.
He described a visceral, generational connection to the country among the Jewish families he represents, many of them children or grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, for whom Israel represents a bulwark against persecution. "I believe in the Jewish homeland's right to exist, and I believe it is right to defend itself against terrorists who do seek to exterminate it," he said. What he opposes, he said, is the conduct of the war under President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which he said has produced a war that most Israelis themselves believe Iran is winning.
"I'm a veteran of these forever wars," he said. "I refuse to support with my voice and vote any measure that might advance yet another third failed forever war in the Middle East." He also drew a line between legitimate criticism of Israeli policy and antisemitism, while acknowledging the two can blur. "When there is sustained double standards, delegitimization and defamation directed at one country out of the hundreds that exist, that does start to brush into where legitimate criticism starts to feel ugly," he said.
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