How local Democratic political machines are used to stifle pro-Palestinian voices

In May 2024, a crowded Democratic primary for Maryland’s Third Congressional District resulted in the election of then-state senator Sarah Elfreth. Incumbent congressman John Sarbanes, son of former senator Paul Sarbanes, had announced his retirement, leading almost 30 different Democrats to try and fill his seat. 

Despite there being more than 20 Democrats in this race, only one candidate called for an immediate, permanent ceasefire in Gaza: John Morse. A labor lawyer for the American Flight Attendants Union, Morse posed a threat to the establishment by daring to suggest that in the midst of a genocide, ceasefire must be unconditional. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) responded to his candidacy by pouring around $4 million in TV ads through their proxy, United Democracy Project (UDP) in support of Elfreth, the establishment-backed candidate. These ads did not focus on Elfreth being an ally to the apartheid state of Israel, but instead on her track record of protecting women’s rights and environmental justice. AIPAC knew that pro-Israel talking points were becoming increasingly unpopular among the American electorate, so they decided instead to promote Elfreth’s campaign from a more liberal angle. 

A significant source of support for Elfreth’s campaign came from local candidates running for Anne Arundul County’s board of education. Elfreth gained the endorsement of her colleagues in Anne Arundel County: the county executive, various state senators and delegates and other local officials. The institutional support for Elfreth scared competitive Democrat-aligned board of education candidates into cross-endorsing Elfreth and distributing her campaign literature. Volunteers who signed up to support those local campaigns were compelled to support Elfreth and walk her literature for free without any say in the process. The Elfreth campaign monopolized every board of education door-knocking effort to court support in the primary. Having the most money raised out of any campaign, board of education candidates felt they had to hitch onto Elfreth in order to improve their chances of winning. 

When I was door-knocking for the board of education and suggested I would support John Morse, one of Elfreth’s field organizers told fellow volunteer and UMD student Pierce Hanlon and I that they’d “call everyone [we speak with] and make sure [we] talked about Elfreth” at every door. The pro-Israel lobby must be teaching intimidation tactics they learned while killing kids to their donation recipients. A massive consolidation of power in Anne Arundel County won Elfreth the primary, despite her poor showings in minority heavy areas in western Anne Arundel County and central Howard County. 

Following Elfreth’s primary victory, Sarbanes hosted a “passing the torch” retirement event in Annapolis. I attended the event and decided to ask Elfreth about her enormous pro-Israel PAC contribution total, as she had never condemned the money. Elfreth waffled about how the contributions weren’t coordinated with her campaign and said that it didn’t change her stance on the “war,” that the hostages should come home and that there should be a (conditional) ceasefire. Later at a campaign event for the general election, Elfreth saw me speaking with my boss, Dana Schallheim, who was running for reelection to the Board of Education and urged Schallheim to drop me as part of her campaign, insisting I would not have spoken to Elfreth that way if she wasn’t a woman. I was not fired, but I was shocked that she would go so far against a high school student just for speaking against her ties to the Israel lobby. 

Of course, Elfreth’s claim that the AIPAC and UDP contributions have nothing to do with her stance on the “war” are demonstrably false. Or perhaps she has always been this callous and unfeeling for brown people foreign countries. Following her “life-changing” 2023 trip to the Apartheid State of Israel, Elfreth has refused to sponsor many common-sense pieces of legislation like the Block the Bombs Act — legislation to block weapons sales to Israel — and did not support an unconditional ceasefire. She also signed onto a letter calling upon the president of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to rescind arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. 

At the time that this letter was signed, Israel had killed more than 75,100 Palestinian people in Gaza. Activists have decried Elfreth’s town hall formats where questions are pre-screened, and no questions related to her support of Israel are allowed. 

The sun may sooner explode before the “right time” to ask these questions arrives. 

Austin Dyches, a primary challenger against Sarah Elfreth this year, said that Elfreth doesn’t show up to candidate forums “because she doesn’t want to get the Gaza question.” The answer to why her town halls are under such restrictive guidelines is almost certainly the same. 

In February, Howard County Council Candidate Amir Naviwala asked Elfreth why she would not sponsor the Block the Bombs Act at an “ICE Out” protest in Columbia.

“I’ve never seen a person turn and run so fast in my life,” Dyches, who was at the event, told me.

For many local elected officials in Maryland, the ties to racist institutions do not end at AIPAC and UDP — this cancer is present in municipal offices too. Atlas Restaurant Group, owned by Alex Smith, is a restaurant conglomerate that rents and owns many properties in the Baltimore metropolitan area, especially in Baltimore City and Annapolis. Atlas is a known contributor to Elfreth’s congressional and state senate campaigns, with Alex Smith having  given thousands of dollars directly to her campaign. Atlas has also contributed to her boyfriend Eric Costello’s campaign for reelection to the Baltimore City Council and Jared Littman, the newly elected Annapolis Mayor’s campaign. Atlas, in 2020, was involved with a scandal after it refused service to a young Black child for wearing a sports jersey. Atlas did not extend this same policy when a white child was dressed similarly, as seen in a video that went viral. Atlas’ grip on the restaurant scene in the area is shutting out local, often minority-owned businesses from popping up, but local leaders welcome their presence due to the perceived tax benefits. Littman, when asked about Atlas’ looming threat to small businesses in Annapolis in a private conversation I had with him, praised Atlas’ economic development potential, but said that he doesn’t owe Atlas anything despite his campaign receiving donations from them. Owen Moyer, an Annapolis City resident who attended the same event, said that Littman “denied any sentiment of pricing out locals and devaluing downtown’s authenticity,” and that Littman “claim[ed] that he had no connection with the group,” referring to Atlas. 

Alex Smith’s uncle is David Smith, now owner of the Baltimore Sun and Sinclair Inc. (formerly known as Sinclair Broadcast Group). Chief political correspondent for Sinclair and special assistant to President Donald Trump Boris Epshteyn said of the Zionist State, “Israel is the only true democracy in the Middle East. Its continued strength and survival are important to the United States, not just symbolically, but also in terms of America’s national security.” Sinclair’s pro-Israel lean is reflected in many dubious guest commentaries and members of the Sun’s editorial board calling President Trump “conflict averse” and writing what-aboutist staff commentaries about how Hamas is actually the one “accountable for turning aid into a weapon and civilians into pawns.” Sinclair in 2023 started a fundraising partnership with Magen David Adom (MDA), a medical relief system in Israel accused of crimes against the Palestinian people by Physicians for Human Rights. As a part of this partnership, Sinclair donated $50,000 to MDA to continue their collaboration with the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). David Smith has also used his ownership of the Baltimore Sun to silence the writers’ union, further cementing his ideological grip on Baltimore area news.

Sinclair uses their ownership of WBFF-TV (FOX45) in the Baltimore Metropolitan Area to push fearmongering content about crime and Black people in Baltimore — thus pushing voters towards “tough on crime” candidates. 

Stephen Janis, a former reporter for FOX and now Capitol Hill correspondent for the Real News Network, told me about a former program run by FOX where reporters “would go out live with police while they search for people who had open warrants.” Janis said this kind of programming aimed to “enforc[e] the idea that police are the best and only solution to violence or crime.” Baltimore’s police department was particularly violent during Janis’ time as a reporter, but even as they “committed years of unconstitutional, racist policing,” the “mainstream media was not really fixing on police brutality at all,” according to Janis. 

Smith family-affiliated and Baltimore Sun-endorsed State’s Attorney of Baltimore Ivan Bates lauded the Israeli police’s visit to the city, thanking them for their annual police unity tour. The Baltimore City Police Department’s (BPD) ties to Israel are well documented. BPD sends its officers to be trained together with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) employees on taxpayer funded trips to Israel. During the Johns Hopkins University encampments in support of Palestine in 2024, BPD surveilled the campus with a helicopter, drone and police cruisers for two days in a clear attempt to scare students into disbanding. The same principles that lead the more rightfully named Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) and Israeli police to terrorize Palestinians are used by BPD to break down anti-imperialist, anti-racist movements and murder Black and brown people.

The Smith family has used its influence to buy Baltimore’s municipal elections in 2024 both through televised fearmongering and direct campaign donations. Much of the content pushed on FOX45 taught viewers that crime is a “dysfunction or disorder … that could only be solved with force,” according to Janis. Despite pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into the Democratic primary, most of the Smith-backed candidates lost to more progressive challengers. Most notably, former Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon, City Council President Nick Mosby, and 11th District City Councilman Eric Costello were unsuccessful in keeping or taking back office. 

And following his loss in the primary, Costello took a job as government relations director for Atlas. 

Local advocacy organization Anne Arundel for Palestine invited Jared Littman to a screening of “The Encampments” during his campaign. Littman refused, calling the movie one-sided. At a meet-and-greet event in 2025 I attended with Annapolis Ward 8 candidate Frank Thorp, activists questioned Littman on how he would oppose ICE’s presence in the city. Littman, at the same event, said in a smaller conversation with me and a few others that those activists would never be happy with any answer that he gave. He also said that he got his advice on how to deal with pro-Palestine activists from Eric Costello, who similarly became frustrated when Defund the Police activists came to his doorstep. Go figure.

There exists a clear and concerted effort from Democratic politicians, especially at the local level, to silence pro-Palestine activists. Howard County activist Hiruy Hadgu explained that if you attempted to speak out for Palestine or any other cause that breaks with the party leadership’s opinion, “you’re going to get socially ostracized, so  … if you’re in the central committee or if you’re appointed to a board by the county executive, you could be asked to resign or you would not be reappointed.” 

Democratic machine politics create an environment that keeps its members fearful of retaliation for suggesting there needs to be change. Hadgu told Al-Hikmah that the pro-Israel establishmentarian Democratic Party can be described as a “cult.” Morse elaborates on this point, saying that the reason that dissenting opinions in the party are suppressed so brutally is because “[Democrats are] all so incestuous with each other.” Any challenge to an incumbent Democrat is perceived as a personal slight against someone’s close friend. One of the most undemocratic and corrupt ways that the Democratic party machine holds on to power is Maryland’s appointment process. The central committee of the party for each county chooses who fills any seat vacated by a Democrat incumbent. Morse explains that by “vacat[ing] at the last minute before taking office,” Sarah Elfreth forced the central committees of Anne Arundel County to “scramble” and select her pick for both the vacated state senate seat and the resulting Delegate seat filled by her then-chief of staff. 

Perpetually concerned for their future careers, anyone who joins the party in a leadership role must assimilate and wait until an elusive ‘right time’ to assert the values they entered office holding. That time often never comes. 

Their supposed progressive values suddenly disappear when their campaign finances are threatened. They disappear when economic development is threatened. Instead the cowardice begins to show. Priority is given not to the masses being summarily executed in a genocide, but rather to Johns Hopkins Applied Research Lab, or Lockheed Martin, or Northrop Grumman, all of whom are major employers in Maryland (especially the 3rd Congressional District). Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, defense contractors on the Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) list for aiding Israel’s genocide in Gaza, have also contributed financially to Sarah Elfreth’s campaign. 

Perhaps it is too frightening to lose out on massive campaign donations from pro-Israel groups. Perhaps it would burn too much political capital with their colleagues to speak out about injustice. Perhaps it is just easier to bully activists out of the political space rather than make a compelling case for why you should be elected in the first place. 

One must wonder where this circle of wealth extraction begins. Do the politicians rise up and become corrupted by the dirty world of campaign finance? Are they hand-picked by the donors themselves who already know these candidates’ morals are for sale? The ultimate achievement in the circle is having the highest volume of people that you can swindle to keep or improve your title. Silencing the growing anti-imperialist, pro-Palestine movement is the last effort the faux progressives have as an act of self-preservation, protecting them from the party’s inevitable shift leftwards. 

A “Democratic” machine so beholden to its right-wing donors must be destroyed. Within our lifetimes, the death knell of the imperialist Democratic party will be heard, and it approaches faster with every disruption and challenge to the status quo.

_{Image credits: Cover photo courtesy of Shubh Agnihotri. Sarah Elfreth’s campaign victory party in Annapolis on Nov. 5, 2024.}