United States Representative Cori Bush, a fierce critic of Israel’s war in Gaza, has lost her Democratic congressional primary, in a race that saw a massive influx of money from pro-Israel groups to defeat a member of Congress’s left-wing “Squad”.
Bush, a Congresswoman from Missouri, lost Tuesday’s primary to St Louis prosecutor Wesley Bell, who won about 51.2 percent of the vote to her 45.6 percent.
“We will stand up for what is right, no matter the cost,” Bush said on Tuesday night in a defiant concession speech posted to social media.
“I just hope he [Bell] actually takes time to learn about our Palestinian, our Arab and Muslim community.”
Bush’s defeat followed an onslaught by pro-Israel groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its affiliated Super PAC, United Democratic Project (UDP), which together poured about $8.5m to topple her.
It was the latest successful effort by the powerful pro-Israel lobbies to knock off lawmakers critical of Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza, which has killed nearly 40,000 people, mostly women and children, and has triggered numerous allegations of war crimes by Israeli forces, including the systematic use of torture.
Bush introduced a resolution in Congress calling for a ceasefire in Gaza just weeks after the start of the war, saying Israel was waging an “ethnic cleansing campaign” in the Palestinian territory.
She boycotted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint sitting of Congress last month, saying attending would be celebrating a “war criminal” at the forefront of a “genocide”.
In June, fellow progressive Jamal Bowman, also critical of the war in Gaza, was defeated by a pro-Israel primary challenger after UDP spent about $15m on the race.
While the defeats of Bowman and Bush show that pro-Israel groups in the US still have the ability to sway important races, they have also been unable to reverse a trend of greater sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians among Democratic voters.
A 2023 Gallup poll found an 11-point swing in favour of sympathy with the Palestinians and away from Israel, and numerous progressive lawmakers have called for an end of US support for Israel’s war in Gaza.
During the Democratic presidential primaries, the “uncommitted” movement, which urged voters in a series of states to mark “uncommitted” on their ballots in protest against President Joe Biden’s support of the war, consistently outperformed expectations.
A pastor and nurse, Bush became a Black Lives Matter activist and led protests after the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014.
During her concession speech, Bush said she would continue to support “a free Palestine”, to which the crowd responded with chants of “Free, free Palestine”.
