Moments after he learned his nearly 14 years in Congress were coming to an end, Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky offered an explanation for his defeat rooted not in his state but thousands of miles east.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would have come out sooner, but I had to call my opponent and concede, and it took a while to find Ed Gallrein in Tel Aviv,\u201d he told cheering supporters at his election-night party, referring to the Republican who beat him<\/a>.<\/p>\n The comment was a clear reference to the millions of dollars spent against Mr. Massie, a longtime critic of Israel and more recently of the war with Iran, by prominent pro-Israel donors and advocacy groups, including a super PAC tied to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.<\/p>\n The Kentucky race is just one of many across the country in which debates over Israel are raging like never before, dividing not only Democrats but also Republicans as the war in Gaza and Israel\u2019s role in the conflict with Iran have shifted American attitudes toward the Jewish state.<\/p>\n And Mr. Massie\u2019s remark was the latest to strike a nerve among some Jewish leaders, who argue that politicians and their supporters have repeatedly blurred the lines between opposition to Israel and antisemitic tropes about Jewish money and power.<\/p>\n The prominence of such comments in politics \u2014 particularly after a series of antisemitic attacks<\/a> \u2014 is alarming and potentially dangerous, they say.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is at warp speed, unlike anything I have ever seen,\u201d said Deborah Lipstadt, a Holocaust scholar at Emory University who served as the Biden administration\u2019s special envoy to fight antisemitism. \u201cThis is the mainstreaming and normalizing of antisemitism.\u201d<\/p>\n Tensions over Israel have flared up in a House race for a deep-blue district in Philadelphia, where Democrats on Tuesday nominated Chris Rabb, a state representative who made criticism of the country a central part of his campaign.<\/p>\n But, at times, his campaign\u2019s opposition to Israel tipped into promoting falsehoods about Jews.<\/p>\n In December, after the mass shooting at a Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach in Australia, Mr. Rabb\u2019s campaign shared an Instagram post saying that the gunmen \u201cwere likely Zionists themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n Shortly after the attack, which killed 15 people, Australian authorities said that the gunmen were motivated by \u201cIslamic state ideology.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n In a statement, Mr. Rabb\u2019s campaign said that the staff member who reposted the message had not worked for the campaign for months and that Mr. Rabb had no knowledge of this repost and would never say anything like it.<\/p>\n In Texas, controversy has surrounded Maureen Galindo, a sex therapist and housing activist running for the House as a Democrat \u2014 but whose campaign Republicans have quietly helped financially<\/a> in an attempt to undermine Democrats.<\/p>\n In a lengthy Instagram post, she promised to turn an immigration detention center into a \u201cprison for American Zionists\u201d and claimed that many Zionists were \u201cpedophiles.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis bigoted garbage and antisemitism should be nowhere near our politics,\u201d said Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive New York Democrat, before she endorsed Johnny Garcia, a Democrat who is facing Ms. Galindo in a runoff election next week.<\/p>\n Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader, criticized the Republicans who have helped Ms. Galindo because they view her as a weaker opponent in a general election.<\/p>\n \u201cHouse Republican leadership must immediately cease propping up this antisemitic candidacy,\u201d he said in a statement.<\/p>\n While Israel was not central to the race between Mr. Massie and Mr. Gallrein, it remained a persistent undercurrent.<\/p>\n Across northern Kentucky, many supporters of Mr. Massie said in interviews that his longstanding opposition to any foreign aid to Israel was a key reason they had championed his campaign. At an event for Republicans in Boone County, Ky., last week, one young man wore a T-shirt with the words \u201cDefund AIPAC.\u201d<\/p>\n In the final days of the campaign, an outside group supporting Mr. Massie\u2019s bid released an anti-Gallrein advertisement<\/a> that showed an image of Paul Singer, a Jewish donor, with a Star of David behind him.<\/p>\n A bizarre incident at a Capitol Hill bar in Washington last week, reported by the news site NOTUS<\/a>, added to the ugliness. According to the report, William Paul, the son of Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, drunkenly told a New York congressman that if Mr. Massie lost, it would be the fault of \u201cyou Jews\u201d before starting a tirade about how Jews were \u201canti-American.\u201d (The younger Mr. Paul apologized and said he was seeking help for a drinking problem.)<\/p>\n The Republican lawmaker he berated, Mike Lawler, is Catholic, and is facing a tough re-election battle in one of the most heavily Jewish congressional districts in the country. (He greeted the news of Mr. Massie\u2019s defeat by writing on X: \u201cMy people have spoken. Shalom<\/a>,\u201d a Hebrew word that can be used to say goodbye.)<\/p>\n Support for Israel has crumbled in both parties, particularly among younger voters.<\/p>\n New polling<\/a> conducted by New York Times\/Siena found that only one-third of Republicans between the ages of 18 and 44 supported providing additional economic and military support to Israel. A majority \u2014 54 percent \u2014 said Mr. Trump had been \u201ctoo supportive of Israel.\u201d Among younger Democrats, 56 percent said their party had been too supportive of Israel.<\/p>\n The issue has spread across primary campaigns, as politicians in both parties try to gain an edge by stressing their opposition to Israel. More than two dozen campaign ads this year have featured messages focusing on Israel, Gaza or Palestinians, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact.<\/p>\n Super PACs affiliated with AIPAC have already spent tens of millions of dollars<\/a> to support their candidates this year, and are widely expected to spend more in upcoming races in California, New York and Michigan. Some of those efforts have backfired<\/a>, helping progressives win and underscoring the depth of discontent toward Israel among the Democratic base.<\/p>\n Several progressive candidates have pledged not to take money from the group. And, in the final days of his primary race, Mr. Massie sponsored a bill to require AIPAC to register as a lobbyist for a foreign nation.<\/p>\n AIPAC had rallied against Mr. Massie over his longtime opposition to providing more aid to Israel and his criticism of the country\u2019s conduct in the Middle East. The spending may not have been decisive in his defeat \u2014 Mr. Trump\u2019s anger at the congressman dominated the race \u2014 but it was an additional challenge for Mr. Massie.<\/p>\n Mr. Massie\u2019s strong criticism of the Jewish state prompted pushback from Jewish leaders, even within his party.<\/p>\n \u201cMassie\u2019s conduct throughout this campaign \u2014 trafficking in antisemitism and bottom-of-the-barrel nativism at a time when Jew hatred is on the rise \u2014 was wildly unacceptable,\u201d said Matt Brooks, the chief executive of the Republican Jewish Coalition.<\/p>\n A spokesman for Mr. Massie did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n Whether \u2014 and when \u2014 opposition to the Jewish state tips into antisemitism has become an active debate in both parties.<\/p>\n