Rep. Maggie Goodlander’s third-largest campaign donor, the pro-Israel group NORPAC, is holding a fundraiser for her in Teaneck, N.J., on Oct. 26. The group’s primary purpose is to raise campaign funds for pro-Israel candidates and to lobby for its legislative agenda. That agenda includes a bill that would codify a controversial definition of antisemitism into law — one that 104 human rights groups warn “wrongly label[s] criticism of Israel as antisemitic.” More than 700 NORPAC members met with 350 congressional offices on May 20, asking them to specifically sponsor this bill. And on May 29, Goodlander became a co-sponsor.
NORPAC’s upcoming fundraiser will be the second it’s held for Goodlander. The first occurred one year ago, on Oct. 9. Photographs from that first event were posted on NORPAC’s Facebook page and show Goodlander smiling alongside the group’s top leaders. Among those leaders was the fundraiser’s host: Allen Friedman, chairman of NORPAC’s “talking points committee.”
On April 29, Friedman appeared in a YouTube video titled “How to Talk to Congress About Israel,” and explained, in stunning detail, NORPAC’s strategy for getting pro-Israel legislation passed. According to Friedman, the group arranges meetings with members of Congress and approaches them with four rehearsed “talking points.” Each one of these talking points ends with an “ask” for a legislative commitment. As Friedman explains, “our goal is to walk out of that meeting with either a willingness to co-sponsor a particular piece of legislation, or at least to think carefully about co-sponsoring a particular piece of legislation.”
One of the key pieces of legislation Friedman highlighted was the Antisemitism Awareness Act. This bill would force the Department of Education to reference a controversial definition of antisemitism from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. And Friedman is remarkably clear about why NORPAC supports it: “The key element there is that it equates anti-Zionism and antisemitism.”
The ACLU vehemently opposes this bill, warning that the IHRA definition “would likely chill free speech … by incorrectly equating criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitism.” If the bill passes, schools will be forced to either crack down on criticism of Israel or risk finding themselves in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. And just a single violation could result in a devastating loss of federal funding.
While the bill has not yet passed, the crackdown on free speech has already started under the Trump administration. Columbia University, for example, was threatened with losing $400 million in federal funds for allegedly not protecting Jewish students during campus protests. In its fight to restore that funding, the university adopted the very IHRA definition this bill seeks to codify nationwide.
On April 30, Sen. Bernie Sanders spoke about the Senate version of this bill, saying, “I worry very much that the Antisemitism Awareness Act, that we are considering today, is unconstitutional and will move us far along in the authoritarian direction that the Trump administration is taking us.”
Sanders is right to be worried. Of the bill’s 88 sponsors in the House, the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC is the top donor for 53% of them, according to OpenSecrets donor data. But what’s really breathtaking is the donor data that’s exclusive to Democrats. Of the 26 Democrats who sponsored this bill, which includes Goodlander, AIPAC is the top donor for 85% of them.
This is not a coincidence. The overwhelming majority of Democrats who sponsored this anti-free speech bill are financially dependent on pro-Israel donors. This is a great example of why Sanders said, “No Democrat should accept money from AIPAC.” And it applies just as much to NORPAC.
According to Federal Election Commission data, Goodlander has received over $114,000 from AIPAC and NORPAC combined, with a mere 5% of the funds coming from New Hampshire. This is not a model of representation that benefits New Hampshire constituents: It is the model of a transaction that benefits New Jersey donors.
If we hope to compete with these outside interests, then we are going to have to start making “asks” of our own. And the president of NORPAC, Dr. Ben Chouake, has given us the blueprint to become effective like they are. As he rightly says, “One person making a phone call makes a difference to a member of Congress.” Let’s take his advice.
Please, call Goodlander’s Concord office at (603) 226-1002 and politely ask the question that addresses this conflict of interest: Will Goodlander continue to accept money from NORPAC?
John S. Hancock II lives in Concord. He can be reached at JHancock2@ProtonMail.com.