Democrats Pick Pro-Israel Hawk Jared Moskowitz to Head Mideast Subcommittee as Party Base Turns Against Israel

On August 25, 2026, House Democrats selected Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) as ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee's Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, according to Arab Center DC. If Democrats retake the House in the November 2026 midterms, Moskowitz would be positioned to chair the panel that shapes US policy toward Israel, Gaza, and Iran.

Moskowitz is not a compromise pick for progressives. He's introduced bipartisan legislation to speed arms sales to countries that normalize relations with Israel, according to Arab Center DC. He was one of only 16 House Democrats who voted with Republicans to force the release of a bomb shipment to Israel that the Biden administration had held back. He's worked with Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) to cut US funding to UN agencies that restrict Israel's participation.

On Iran, Moskowitz has said his views track closer to Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) than to his own party's leadership, and he initially blasted the Khanna-Massie War Powers Resolution restraining Trump on Iran as the "Ayatollah Protection Act," per Arab Center DC. He ultimately voted for it once strikes were already underway, framing that vote as a defense of Congress's constitutional war powers rather than opposition to the strikes themselves.

The Base Is Moving the Other Direction

Polling cited by the Daily Wire shows 60% of US adults now hold an unfavorable view of Israel, up from 53% a year earlier. Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, that figure jumps to 80%, up from 69% the prior year and just 53% in 2022. Democrats under 50 are the most negative, with nearly half describing their view as "very unfavorable."

That shift showed up loudly in the 2026 primaries. Progressive candidates critical of Israeli policy won in multiple races, according to Mondoweiss, including Claire Valdez, Darializa Avila Chevalier, and Brad Lander in New York, Milat Kiros in Colorado, Chris Rabb in Pennsylvania, and Adam Hamawi in New Jersey. But the party establishment held plenty of ground too. Chris Pappas won the Senate nomination in New Hampshire, Abdul El-Sayed survived by less than a point, and Reps. Richie Torres, Moskowitz, and Greg Stanton all won their primaries, per political consultant Peter Feld, speaking to Mondoweiss.

According to the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, AIPAC's United Democracy Project super PAC spent tens of millions of dollars in the 2026 primaries. Several UDP-backed candidates still lost to rivals more critical of Israel. AIPAC's money still helped protect incumbents like Moskowitz, Torres, and Stanton, though some argue this represents a shift in the group's electoral leverage.

Is Israel Really the "Biggest" Foreign Lobby?

Progressive figures including Zohran Mamdani, Abdul El-Sayed, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Rep. Ilhan Omar have all cast AIPAC as an outsized, even dominant foreign influence over US policy. That's a serious charge, and it deserves a fair hearing: American voters have every right to scrutinize where campaign money comes from and what it buys, and outside spending in the tens of millions on single primary races is a legitimate concern regardless of which country or cause it backs.

But the specific claim that Israel is the single biggest foreign lobby doesn't hold up against the data those critics themselves would need to rely on. Per Foreign Agents Registration Act filings compiled by OpenSecrets and cited by the Daily Wire, Israel ranks tenth in total foreign lobbying spending since 2016, behind China, Qatar, Japan, Liberia, and Saudi Arabia.

There's a real distinction being blurred here. AIPAC is a domestic American organization funded by American citizens. It isn't registered as a foreign agent under FARA, and its United Democracy Project spending is domestic campaign finance, not foreign lobbying in the FARA sense. The "biggest foreign lobby" framing measures the wrong category. Critics have a legitimate argument about the scale of AIPAC's domestic PAC spending. They don't have the data to back the specific claim that Israel outspends every other foreign government's lobbying operation in Washington.

The Party's Internal Fight Is Getting Local Too

The divide isn't confined to Congress. On September 3, 2026, the Albany County Young Democrats accused Israel's government of "genocide" in Gaza and called for an end to US military aid, without mentioning the October 7 attacks. New York state party chair Jay Jacobs called the genocide accusation an "outlier" position within the party. Albany County Democratic Committee chairman Jake Crawford said the county party "did not issue and strongly opposes" the statement and noted the Young Democrats aren't currently chartered by the county committee.

Peter Feld told Mondoweiss that Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and the party establishment are "doubling down" on support for Israel while positioning figures like Moskowitz atop key foreign policy committees, a strategy Feld argues could put Jeffries at odds with the party's own energized base if Democrats win the House majority he expects. Whether that bet pays off, or blows up the coalition Democrats need to hold, won't be clear until votes are counted in November and, if Democrats win the majority, until committee assignments are finalized in the next Congress.