6 | SEPTEMBER 8 • 2022 

1942 - 2022

Covering and Connecting 
Jewish Detroit Every Week

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people of greater Detroit and beyond, and the State of Israel.

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Detroit Jewish community, reflecting the diverse views and interests of the Jewish community while advancing the 
morale and spirit of the community and advocating Jewish unity, identity and continuity.

DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
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thejewishnews.com

 
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The Detroit Jewish 
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guest column

AIPAC’s New Strategy
M

uch has been writ-
ten about AIPAC’s 
new strategy for 
strengthening the U.S.-Israel 
relationship. Unfortunately, 
much of it falls into the cat-
egory of mis-
information — 
some from those 
who legitimately 
misunderstand 
the strategy, 
and even more 
from those who 
oppose AIPAC 
or Israel and find the new 
strategy threatening. As a 
pro-Israel activist for four 
decades, a member of AIPAC’s 
national board of directors 
for two of those years and its 
national president from 2008-
2010, I am well- positioned to 
add some light to all the heat 
this subject has attracted.

One of the things I most 
admire about AIPAC is its 
constant introspection and 
perpetual quest to improve. 
For over 30 years, AIPAC’s 
strategic 
model served 
our mission 
well — indeed 
quite well with 
AIPAC con-
sistently rated 
among the 
most effective 
and respected 
single issue 
advocacy orga-
nizations in 
the country, in the company 
of much larger and better- 
funded organizations. While 
these plaudits were validating 
and appreciated, our own 
over-the-horizon assessment 
given our country’s unprece-

dented political environment 
made clear a strategic shift 
was needed.
Hyper-polarization, sky-
rocketing costs of campaigns 
and the 
ascendance 
of anti-Israel 
far-left poli-
ticians were 
among the 
political trends 
conspiring to 
demand pro-
found change. 
AIPAC could 
no longer 
focus exclu-
sively on issue advocacy while 
leaving political engagement 
to individual pro-Israel activ-
ists. Instead, AIPAC as an 
organization needed to enter 
the political arena in its own 
name, assertively helping our 

friends and pushing back on 
those seeking to undermine 
our mission. 
To achieve this goal, AIPAC 
established a federal PAC and 
a SuperPAC. AIPAC’s federal 
PAC — the AIPAC PAC and 
AIPAC Political Portal — are 
the vehicles through which 
voters can support pro-Israel 
candidates throughout the 
country, enabling them to 
define themselves to their 
electorates. Further, AIPAC’s 
PAC publicly endorses can-
didates from both parties 
(in roughly equal numbers) 
exclusively based on their sup-
port of the U.S.-Israel relation-
ship. This designation makes 
clear to all which candidates 
and members of Congress are 
pro-Israel and which are not. 
As myriad polls have shown 
over many decades, our coun-

PURELY COMMENTARY

David Victor

