In a country that has long been a bastion of international Zionism, where pro-Israel lobbies dominate the public sphere in politics, the economy, academia and the media, the opposition to Washington’s support for Israel has gathered unprecedented momentum.
It is as if American society is experiencing an awakening, shaking off the Zionist influence that has harnessed so much of the US’ financial, military and diplomatic power to serve Israel’s expansionist project at the expense of US national interests.
Now, for the first time, the grassroots protest movement will acquire an institutionalised dynamic that has the potential to stimulate genuine change in US policy. Next week will see the official launch of the American Anti-Zionist Political Action Committee (AZAPAC).
The new lobbying group pits itself directly against such pro-Israel organisations as the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which has long served as Zionism’s instrument, bending US foreign policy in favour of Israeli agendas. Through its various arms, AIPAC exerts near total control over Congress.
AZAPAC is a culmination of the mounting discontent felt across a broad spectrum of American society. It began to manifest itself nearly two years ago in the student demonstrations on university campuses against Washington’s active complicity in the genocide in Gaza through financial support and a steady supply of weapons to Israel.
Moreover, the US sustained the flow of arms despite evidence for their indiscriminate destruction, the international outcry against the atrocities, and the warrants issued by the International Criminal Court against Israeli leaders on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The Trump administration attempted to stifle the protest through various means, including the arrest of participants in demonstrations. However, it soon became clear that the movement was not limited to university campuses or disconnected from the wider world. Rather, they expressed a deeper, qualitative shift across US society.
The protests continued both on and off campus. Many American Jewish groups participated in them or launched their own actions, publicly disavowing Israel’s behaviour in Gaza and condemning their government’s collusion in what the International Court of Justice has deemed a plausible genocide.
The creation of the new PAC signals another qualitative shift: the transformation of the movement into a formal political organisation. The creation of AZAPAC ushers in a phase characterised not only by ongoing demonstrations against Washington’s unmitigated pro-Israeli bias but also by a direct engagement in electoral politics to substantially reshape US foreign policy.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 4 September, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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