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I’ve got some preliminary thoughts on what Bowman’s likely win tells us about the politics of Israel-Palestine and insurgent challengers. This is a huge defeat for the Israel lobby which went all in on Engel. It’s more complicated for the Palestinian rights movement.
Bowman’s strategy was to stitch together the “Obama coalition”: liberal whites—in this district liberal white Jews—and Black and Latino people. To effectively get the white Jewish liberal vote Bowman was extremely careful on Palestine.
He repeatedly went out of his way to oppose BDS (Israel advocates have successfully made BDS a scarlet letter, a deeply controversial position to take.) He repeatedly emphasized his commitment to Israeli security. He also said US aid should not fund Israeli human rights abuses.
Conditions on aid was the KEY difference between Bowman and Engel. And it is a big difference because of the constrained nature of debate on Israel. But for Palestinians it’s nevertheless disappointing to see a candidate stay far from BDS and frame issue around Israeli security
They still see the contradictions: Bowman supports Black Lives Matter unequivocally. On the BDS movement, a Palestinian-led social movement, he stays away. (This is not a comment on the rightness or wrongness of this; it’s just an observation btw)
How broadly these lessons apply to other districts is an open question. But you can actually see these dynamics play out in other races from 2018. Ilhan and Rashida stayed away from BDS during 2018 campaigns. It was only after they got elected that they endorsed the movement
