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I want to weep over how Susheela Jayapal, an early advocate for a Gaza ceasefire, lost big this primary. She was outspent by Maxine Dexter’s campaign several times over, with funding tied predominantly to the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC (through anonymous spending with undisclosed donors), per reporting of the Intercept and the Mercury. Dexter told the Willamette Week on Election Day that she hasn’t compromised her values “for one second”—unbelievable! She also gave a “I-know-nothing” answer to WW that night, as to why she had such generous donations. AIPAC triumphantly posted the next day: “Being pro-Israel is good policy and good politics!” Of course, AIPAC didn’t want Pramila Jayapal’s sister to win, with Pramila a House leader on Gaza. The hateful, anonymous anti-Jayapal ads made her the scapegoat for failures of every branch of government on homelessness. Really?! To the contrary, the Scanner praised her work for the unhoused in its endorsement. Unfortunately, national progressive groups were too late and too little in their funding appeals for this candidate. After the Intercept revealed the AIPAC-Dexter connection on May 3rd, a pitch for Susheela went out to Bernie Sanders’ listserv and alerts came from the Progressive Democrats of America. Sadly too, at a Portland rally related to Gaza last Saturday, the speakers didn’t promote remembering to vote! Will there be grassroots pressure to push Dexter to throw off AIPAC’s embrace? Blumenauer and Sen. Merkley were the only members of Oregon’s delegation to vote against more funds to Israel this spring. Merkley had a more pro-Israel stance than his primary opponent (Steve Novick) back in 2008. What alchemy of confrontation and/or persuasion can we use to keep our next District 3 representative from funding further the Israeli war machine?