I never thought I would utter this sentence, but Democrats need to stop bashing AIPAC.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee has never been my political home. Over the past few decades, I have often been a fierce opponent of the vaunted pro-Israel organization. I worked for years for—and in some cases, actually helped launch—a number of organizations meant to counter the outfit’s outsized influence, including the Israel Policy Forum, J Street and the Jewish Democratic Council of America.

It has long been my conviction that AIPAC’s approach to Israel has been a disaster. AIPAC’s blank check for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has led directly to the strategic blunder of the Iran war and the moral abyss of the Gaza campaign. The venerable lobby echoes the Jewish state not wisely, but too well.

Being a Zionist does not preclude critical engagement with the Jewish state’s policies and politics. On the contrary, to cherish Jerusalem as our highest joy means holding Israel’s leaders to account. I am that proud Zionist.

I have lived there with my family. My kids attended public (religious) grade school there.

And I’m a big Democrat. Yet I am disturbed at how some Democrats have begun to cast AIPAC as evil incarnate, even if no special-interest organization stands above criticism or reproach.

The anti-AIPAC vitriol has now crossed the line from partisan rough-and-tumble into antisemitic innuendo. The onslaught against such a high-profile pro-Israel organization camouflages what might simply be a campaign against American Jews as such—against our patriotism, against our right to engage in the political process.

Consider what has happened last week in New York City, where Mayor Zohran Mamdani helped oust moderate incumbents and other party favorites in a series of congressional races.

In at least one of these primary contests, where Claire Valdez, a New York State assembly member, union organizer and Democratic Socialist who won in the primaries, prevailed over Brooklyn borough president Antonio Reynoso, the pro-Israel outfit became a lightning rod despite the absence of an AIPAC-backed candidate. Valdez nonetheless suggested that Reynoso was a pawn of the lobby group.

A similar dynamic was on display in the contest between former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander and Rep. Dan Goldman. The district straddles Brooklyn and Manhattan, where the banks of the Hudson River ought to matter more than the banks of the Jordan River.

But Lander, who despite being Jewish himself, shamefully wrapped his arms around Islamists and Holocaust deniers, and used Israel and AIPAC as a wedge. The campaign descended to such depths that Goldman’s office was vandalized with anti-AIPAC taunts, and a local coffee shop tried to ban him for his support for the supposed genocide in Gaza.

Then came Mamdani’s notorious speech describing AIPAC and its allies as “monsters,” accusing the organization of using dark money to preserve its power and influence.

When political organizations associated with large numbers of Jewish Americans appear assimilated to a shadowy, occult force manipulating national politics and global events, many Jews hear echoes that should concern anyone familiar with history.

You don’t have to be a supporter of AIPAC to understand why. In fact, some of Mamdani’s own Jewish allies expressed discomfort with the rhetoric, arguing that describing political opponents as “monsters” dehumanizes them rather than engages them.

What troubles me most is the double standard. Every interest group in Washington spends money. Labor unions spend money. Environmental organizations spend money. Trial lawyers spend money. Crypto interests spend money. Tech billionaires spend money. Ideological groups of every imaginable persuasion spend money. And that’s not to mention the army of people working on behalf of foreign powers and registered under FARA, the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Yet few of these organizations occupy the uniquely symbolic place that AIPAC increasingly does on the progressive left. For some candidates, denouncing AIPAC has become a rite of passage, a way of demonstrating membership in the movement.

That should worry liberals.

Not because AIPAC deserves protection, but because democratic politics depends on judging organizations by what they do, not by what they symbolize.

Where AIPAC, the organization, gives money directly to a candidate, as they now sometimes do (for decades they didn’t), that’s one thing. But where they are not even involved in a race, that’s quite another.

The irony is that many of the same people who rightly condemn collective guilt in other contexts seem comfortable treating millions of American Jews as politically suspect because they support, or once supported, organizations connected to Israel.

I oppose Netanyahu. I oppose many policies of the current Israeli government. I have spent years arguing with fellow Jews about settlements, democracy, religious pluralism and the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Still, none of that requires turning AIPAC into a uniquely malevolent force in American politics.

Criticize its positions. Challenge its spending. Argue against its endorsements. That’s politics.

But stop pretending that AIPAC is somehow different from every other interest group operating in Washington.

And stop using language that edges uncomfortably close to the oldest accusations ever directed against Jews: that they wield secret power, manipulate governments and corrupt democratic institutions from behind the scenes.

Most of the candidates’ campaigns and allies employing this rhetoric are not antisemites. But intentions do not erase consequences.

At a moment when antisemitism is rising from both the right and the left, liberals should be especially careful not to normalize language that transforms political disagreement into moral demonology.

AIPAC is not above criticism. Nor is J Street.

Neither is the NRA, Planned Parenthood, the AFL-CIO, the Chamber of Commerce or any other advocacy group participating in American democracy.

The answer to speech is more speech. The answer to spending is organizing. The answer to political influence is political persuasion.

The answer is not turning one Jewish-affiliated advocacy organization into the embodiment of everything wrong with American politics.

As someone who disagrees with AIPAC more often than its leaders would probably like, I never expected to be saying this.

But enough is enough.