I am a proud Democrat, and I have always proudly supported Israel. And because I support Israel, I support the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, though my journey there has not been a straight line.

I was an AIPAC supporter from the late 1980s through 2017, when I stepped away over the organization’s opposition to President Barack Obama’s 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Whether it was my view of the agreement, the wisdom of challenging a president I supported or the way it strained relationships among Democrats and pro-Israel Americans, I quietly voted with my feet. I did not reengage until after Oct. 7, 2023.

In the immediate wake of Hamas’ terror attack, even before Israel responded, I watched anti-Israel sentiment accelerate within my party, including in Illinois.

We saw elected officials that Oct. 8 implying the Hamas attack was justified resistance. Two of the 15 Democrats who opposed or abstained from a congressional resolution standing with Israel were from Chicago. One was among eight Democrats who previously opposed Iron Dome funding — not long-range missiles or bunker busters, but a defensive system that protects civilians from rocket attacks. Having been in Tel Aviv in July 2014 through days of rockets targeting civilians, I witnessed its lifesaving value.

So I reached out to AIPAC asking how I could help ensure we didn’t send more people to Congress from Chicago who would deny Israel access to even essential defensive weapons.

I want to be clear: I was as horrified as anyone by the complete tragedies of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel and by the death and destruction in Gaza that followed from Israel’s effort to degrade Hamas.

I don’t agree with everything Israel and AIPAC do. Like many Israeli leaders as well as elected officials who receive AIPAC support, I believe in a two-state solution. If you’re not for two states, you’re for endless war. I also believe in a big tent Democratic Party. Democratic leaders claim to be for those things as well. Yet we demonize AIPAC and pro-Israel Jewish Democrats, while accepting those who cannot even say they support a two-state solution that includes Israel.

Let’s look at what just happened in Illinois. Through super political action committees with support from local Democrats like me, AIPAC backed four candidates in Chicagoland’s open-seat Democratic U.S. House primaries. All four were women and experienced public servants: a Cook County commissioner, a Chicago city official, a former U.S. representative who lost her congressional seat largely for supporting Obamacare and an Illinois state senator.

Two won, and two lost. The supposed crime of all four was that AIPAC spent significantly to help them win. There were even efforts to disqualify candidates for accepting money from individuals who had historically donated to AIPAC.

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AIPAC wasn’t the only special interest group spending seven figures in these races. The crypto and artificial intelligence industries were all in. But only AIPAC became the cause célèbre. Using names such as Elect Chicago Women and running ads on issues voters care about were declared nefarious — while other groups used the same playbook with much less criticism. The double standard was stark and deliberate: a coordinated effort to make support for Israel a litmus test for Democratic primary candidates in 2026 and beyond.

In the 7th Congressional District, one first-time candidate delivered a rehearsed attack targeting one candidate getting support from AIPAC and two for accepting money from AIPAC donors, including one I supported.

My support for that candidate, Anthony Driver, had nothing to do with Israel policy. I knew him through violence reduction work as a progressive I deeply admired.

The video went viral within 36 hours. It caused the candidate, a lifelong progressive union organizer without an antisemitic bone in his body who believes in a two-state solution, to return my donation to try to stop the bot-fueled social media storm. According to a recent social media post, the hate hasn’t stopped. He now believes the hostility from the left, from people who purportedly share his values, needs to be addressed. He’s right.

Let’s be clear: The campaign against AIPAC is not a policy discussion. It’s a thinly disguised effort to make support for Israel politically toxic in the Democratic Party, to chase Jews and their allies out of our big tent coalition.

Jews, including pro-Israel Jews, have been a mainstay of the Democratic Party for generations — important allies in the good fights and “good trouble” across decades, from civil rights to reproductive rights, marriage equality to gun safety. I have worked for those same Democratic causes — marriage equality, increased public school funding, an assault weapons ban — here in Illinois.

I am staying in the Democratic Party and will continue supporting Personal PAC, Equality Illinois, Everytown for Gun Safety, Chicago Public Media, the Democratic National Convention Committee and, yes, AIPAC, when they seek local Democratic donors to support solid local Democrats.

Many pro-Israel, pro-two-state-solution Jewish Democrats don’t like the current Israeli government’s direction. Many of those same Democrats don’t like what’s happening in Washington. You might even share those views.

But ask yourself: Do you believe other countries should boycott, divest or sanction (BDS) American businesses, scientists, athletes or artists because of our government’s policies? Of course not. So why are some Democrats embracing BDS against Israel? If we don’t want others to hold all Americans responsible for the actions of our government, why are we holding all Israelis, and their supporters, responsible for the actions of theirs?

We need Democratic leadership to brave this issue. To paraphrase the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., we need more thermostats and fewer thermometers. Real leadership recognizes that we can hold complicated views about the Israeli government and still refuse to make Jewish identity and pro-Israel sentiment a political disqualifier in our party. We can defend the big tent when it is inconvenient, not just when it is easy.

When the votes were counted in the Illinois primaries, the most extreme anti-Israel candidates were rejected in every race. Voters chose pragmatic progressives who focused on the issues that mattered most to them. I hope our leaders see that, and start rejecting litmus tests and double standards, and stand for their commitment to a big tent Democratic Party.

Michael J. Sacks served as vice chairman of World Business Chicago, a public-private economic development organization, for eight years under Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and served as chair of the 2024 Chicago Democratic National Convention Host Committee under Gov. JB Pritzker.

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