Let’s give credit where it’s due: refusing AIPAC money in today’s Democratic Party takes a certain kind of nerve. It’s not nothing. It’s walking into a room full of people holding cash and saying, “No thanks, I’ll take the death threats instead.” That takes spine, and spine is in short supply on Capitol Hill.

But here’s the difference between those who just want to stop the genocide so they can go back to feeling comfortable with the world and those who want lasting peace and an actual end to the conflict that is at the heart of global unrest: refusing the money is the bare minimum. It’s the opening move, not the final exam. And if we treat it like the finish line, we’re setting ourselves up for the same old disappointment.

Because even politicians who refuse to take AIPAC money, call for ending weapons and money to Israel, call for ending settler violence, and/or call for implementing the two-state solution while still believing in Israel’s co-called right to exist as a Jewish state are still Zionists, and the problem with lesser Zionists is that, when push comes to shove, they are just as capable of mega macabre acts as the overt ones. Look at Joe Biden. We chose him over Trump because Trump was openly Netanyahu’s real estate agent—moving the embassy, gifting the Golan, treating the West Bank like a timeshare. And what did we get? A holocaust. Not hyperbole. An actual, documented genocide, live-streamed to our phones. Kamala would have been more polite about it, but the outcome? Gaza depopulated by now, just with more sympathetic press releases.

The same goes for the Amy Klobuchars, Cory Bookers, and Hakeem Jeffrieses of the world. They’ll stand for a photo with Netanyahu—war criminal, architect of slaughter—and call it diplomacy. They’ll vote for arms packages and call it “supporting our ally.” They don’t view themselves as radically evil as they are, they view themselves as normal. You see, to them, accepting Israel’s founding and existence is normal, and that’s why we can’t have people like them.

So when a politician steps up and says, “I won’t take AIPAC money,” that’s worth noting. It’s a break from the consensus. It’s costly. It invites primary challenges, smear campaigns, and the full weight of a lobbying apparatus that treats Palestine like a PR problem.

But it’s not enough. Not even close.

Here’s what separates the real thing from the performance:

1. BDS isn’t optional. If you’re not willing to support boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel and the companies that prop up its occupation, you’re not serious about ending apartheid. The Palestinian civil society call in 2005 wasn’t a suggestion—it was a strategy. Ignoring it is ignoring the people you claim to stand with.

2. The right of return for all Palestinians into all of historic Palestine isn’t negotiable. UN Resolution 194 wasn’t a footnote. Palestinians didn’t leave because they wanted to—they were driven out, dispossessed, and replaced. They still live in refugee camps, generations later, while their old homes in Jaffa, Haifa, and the hundreds of Palestinian villages now engulfed in “Israel” are occupied by people who had no connection to the land. They were traded generational poverty for their generational wealth. Any politician who sidesteps this is normalizing theft and ethnic cleansing.

3. Two states is dead. Long live equality. The two-state solution isn’t a solution anymore—it’s a rhetorical coffin. Settlements have carved up the West Bank past the point of viability. What we have is one state, and it’s an apartheid state. The only moral path forward is full equality for everyone between the river and the sea—whether through one state, a federation, or something we haven’t imagined yet. Every Palestinian in the West Bank and Gaza deserves the same rights as any Jew in 1948 Palestine, and every diaspora Palestinian deserves the same right to go back to historic Palestine and gain citizenship that Jews around the world can gain.

This isn’t about purity-testing the people who are actually trying. It’s about keeping the goalposts where they belong. The politicians who refuse AIPAC money deserve our respect—and our scrutiny. Because if they stop at “I said no to the check,” they’re still selling us short.

The system doesn’t need tweaks. It needs dismantling. And that starts with demanding more from the people who claim to be on the right side—not less.

So no, don’t attack the ones who’ve taken the courageous step. Praise them. Then hand them a list of what comes next. Because without these demands, we’re not building peace—we’re just trading one set of enablers for another, and the bodies keep piling up.

And that’s the grift we’ve all been sold.