The pro-Israel AIPAC lobby met last week
for its first major public event in Washington since the COVID pandemic.
The atmosphere among the thousands of attendees at its off-the-record
plenum sessions exuded a spirit of solidarity with the Jewish state and
determination to stick to its traditional and once highly successful
formula of seeking bipartisan support for the State of Israel.
But hanging over it all was a stark truth
about the current atmosphere that can’t be denied. To be pro-Israel, let
alone willing to work with AIPAC, has become politically dangerous for
Democrats.
AIPAC becomes toxic for
Democrats
It’s a familiar story that’s repeating
itself in midterm races occurring all over the country, as well as in
the first murmurings of the run-up to the 2028 presidential election.
Everywhere you look, you find evidence
of mainstream Democrats scurrying for cover as their invariably more
left-wing primary opponents use past visits to Israel or reports of
their getting funding from pro-Israel PACs, as well as those connected
to AIPAC, as campaign issues. For Democrats, AIPAC is more and more
being falsely compared to radical right-wing hate groups, despite the
absurdity of the comparisons.
Examples of this abound. In Illinois, State Senator Laura Fine is being bashed
for taking pro-Israel PAC money by her opponent Daniel Bliss, as they
compete for the Democratic nomination to replace Rep. Jan Schakowsky
(D-Ill.), herself a veteran Israel-basher in the state’s heavily Jewish
9th District on Chicago’s North Side and adjoining suburbs. All three
are Jewish.
Even more awkward is the controversy
in New York’s 10th District, where Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) is running
for a third term in another constituency with a significant Jewish
population in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Goldman felt compelled to distance
himself from his wife and campaign treasurer, Corrine Levy Goldman,
because of her online support for Israel and outrage about the
Palestinian Arab terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, 2023.
Though as much of a limousine liberal as
her husband, who is one of the heirs to the Levi Strauss & Company
jeans fortune, she is under fire for the offense of liking posts on
Facebook that said that “Jews for Palestine” made as much sense as
“Chickens for KFC” and that suggested that those who advocated for “Free
Palestine” ought to go to the Gaza Strip and experience life under
Hamas rule. Though those are entirely reasonable points of view, they
were characterized by The New York Times as “hateful” and “insensitive,” which is, no doubt, how people who support the Oct. 7 massacres and Hamas feel about them.
The case of the Goldmans might be comical if it were not so troubling.
Goldman, who was the lead counsel for the
first attempt to impeach Trump, is considered a relatively moderate
Democrat and a supporter of Israel, albeit one who feels compelled to
continually distance himself from the Jewish state’s government and
virtually anything it does to defend itself from terrorists and their
Iranian sponsors. But he now finds himself at a disadvantage as he tries
to fend off a primary challenge from former New York City Controller
Brad Lander (also Jewish), who is an ardent opponent of AIPAC and
Israel.
The AIPAC-bashing, however, is more than a function of these liberal civil wars in deep-blue districts.
Polling milestone
As the most recent Gallup poll measuring attitudes toward Israel indicated, the already existing partisan divide over the Middle East is growing.
As it stands now, 65% of those who
identify as Democrats sympathize with the Palestinians while only 17%
are on Israel’s side. By contrast, 70% of Republicans support Israel
while only 13% back the Palestinians. Meanwhile, independents now also
tilt toward the Palestinians, with 41% sympathizing with them to 30%
backing Israel. As a result, for the first time in the 21st century, a
plurality of Americans as a whole are pro-Palestinian, the atrocities of
Oct. 7 notwithstanding.
That Democrats are no longer a pro-Israel party isn’t news.
The left’s embrace of toxic ideas like
intersectionality, critical race theory and settler-colonialism, which
label Jews as “white” oppressors over people of color, has caused the
two parties to exchange identities on the issue. More than half a
century ago, the Democrats were largely sympathetic to Israel, while
most Republicans were lukewarm about it. But over the course of the 21st
century, the growing alienation toward the Jewish state in the
Democratic Party has steadily increased. It is now to the point that
backing the right of the one Jewish state on the planet to exist and
defend itself is almost as unpopular among Democrats as opposing
abortion.
So, it’s not really all that surprising
that some Democrats—long considered moderates and eager to be identified
as pro-Israel—are abandoning that stance. That’s true for Sen. Ruben
Gallego (D-N.M.), considered a long-shot Democratic presidential
contender in 2028, and
who recently joined the chorus of those blaming U.S. involvement in the conflict in Iran on the Jewish state.
Newsom’s cynical turn
Gavin Newsom now compares Israel to an “Apartheid State” and urges the U.S. to rethink on Military Support
The embrace of anti-Israel rhetoric by
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, now that he’s clearly aiming at a run for
president, is evidence of the current political climate. Not so long
ago, Newsom, who currently ranks
second in the early presidential preferences of Democrats behind former
Vice President Kamala Harris, was eager to be identified as a supporter
of Israel, even making a solidarity visit after the Oct. 7 attacks. But
the 58-year-old governor, who has always been something of a political
chameleon, has put his finger up into the wind and decided to change
sides.
Instead of a gradual drift away from his
former position, he has come to the conclusion that halfway steps would
be of little use in primaries where anti-Israel voters will clearly
predominate. So, he is not just saying
that he would cut off U.S. aid to Israel, even while it is still at war
with terrorists and nations that seek its destruction. He is fully
bowing the knee to so-called “progressives” by smearing it as an
“apartheid” state.
It’s far from clear whether such vicious
attacks will ultimately win elections outside of Democratic primaries or
in deep-blue states. But there’s no use pretending that what was once
accurately described as a bipartisan pro-Israel consensus simply no
longer exists.
And that leaves AIPAC, as well as the majority of Jews who identify as Democrats, with a difficult problem and a stark choice.
The myth of the
so-called ‘Israel lobby’
The idea that AIPAC—the fearsome “Israel
lobby”—has always been a dominant force in Washington is utter nonsense.
The anti-Israel movement, funded by oil-rich Islamist emirates like
Qatar and leftists like the Soros family,
has far more money to spread around. And compared to corporate lobbies
like those that represent the oil and pharmaceutical industries, AIPAC
is a minor player inside the Beltway.
Still, the idea of its importance was
bolstered both by its supporters, who thought it helped convince more
people to listen to their arguments, and its opponents, for whom it has
long been the object of their antisemitic conspiracy theories about
Jewish money buying Washington and the alleged dual loyalty of American
Jews. If most members of Congress were sympathetic to Israel, it was
because the Jewish state was broadly popular among voters. And it still
is, at least among Republicans.
Another myth was the claim that it tilted
to the right, an idea that has gained a great deal of currency in the
last decade. That was never true and still isn’t.
The lobby has always been animated by the
idea that building support for Israel in both parties was vital. As
such, it did its best to cultivate Democrats and Republicans.
To this day, it seeks to help pro-Israel Democrats triumph over those
who oppose the Jewish state and approaches GOP races in the same way.
Yet Democrats have become increasingly
hostile to Israel, a trend that accelerated during the presidency of
Barack Obama, who sought to appease Iran. While that was happening,
Republicans—in no small measure due to the influence of evangelical
Christians—became more of a lockstep pro-Israel party.
AIPAC’s leadership was deeply embarrassed and apologized
for the reaction of many of those in attendance at their 2016
conference when then-presidential candidate Donald Trump spoke. The mere
fact that they were giving him a hearing outraged many Democrats. But a
loud cheer went up in the crowd when Trump mentioned that Obama was in
the last year of his presidency. This was considered evidence that the
group was being taken over by right-wingers. All it meant was that
grass-roots pro-Israel activists, most of whom were Democrats, were
alienated by an administration that had turned on Israel.
The Trump factor
Trump has proven time and again to be the
most pro-Israel president to sit in the White House since the founding
of the modern-day Jewish state in 1948. That belief, rooted in many of
the decisions in his first term, such as moving the U.S. embassy from
Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and the 2020 Abraham Accords, has been reinforced
by his recent stand on Iran. His willingness to use force to defend both
the Jewish state and Americans from the nuclear and terrorist threat
that Obama sought to appease has again earned him the gratitude of the
pro-Israel community.
The issue for AIPAC and Jewish voters
isn’t so much what Trump is actually doing. Nor is it the way
anti-Israel and antisemitic voices on the right, such as former Fox News host Tucker Carlson,
are opposing the president. Rather, it is the wholesale collapse of
pro-Israel sentiment among Democrats and the way tropes of Jew-hatred
have become normalized in the party. Carlson and even more hateful
right-wingers represent a loud minority in the GOP with minimal support
among officeholders and party activists. Still, as has become painfully
obvious, hostility to Israel and Zionism, coupled with a willingness to
treat those who call for Jewish genocide as both reasonable and
idealistic, is now the view of a majority of Democrats.
It was one thing when Harris and former President Joe Biden were treating
Jew-haters with kid gloves in a futile attempt to win them over without
fully embracing their positions. But these days, mainstream Democrats
like Newsom are doubling down on the Israel-bashing and even matching
the invective of those who were widely thought of as extremists only a
few years ago.
A test for Jews
For those Jews who are themselves
abandoning Israel, this won’t be much of a dilemma. Indeed, many
left-wing Jews and publications that appeal to them, such as The Forward, are claiming
it is only understandable. Some have themselves bought into the
campaign of pro-Hamas propaganda, including blood libels about Israel
committing genocide in the Gaza Strip. As a result, those who feel this
way now seem to think that Zionism is incompatible with their skewed
concept of liberalism or their misguided notions about Judaism that
strip it of Jewish peoplehood and the religious importance of the land
of Israel.
But the majority of liberal Jews who still
say they care about Israel, even if they aren’t fans of its current
government, will soon face a profound test of their principles. They may
still detest Trump and the GOP. Yet are they ready to vote for
Democrats, like Newsom, who are prepared to demonize the Jewish state
and treat mainstream politically neutral advocates for it, like AIPAC,
as if it were a hate group? If so, then they will be sending a message
that their ties to left-wing allies and traditional hostility to
Republicans are more important to them than Israel’s survival at a time
of war and surging antisemitism.
Under these circumstances, it’s going to
be harder and harder for pro-Israel Democrats to hold their ground
within the party, let alone aspire to lead it. It will be equally
difficult for AIPAC to find Democrats to support. Stalwarts, like Sen.
John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who are prepared to stand behind Israel and
support efforts to defeat those who seek its destruction, were once
commonplace in the party. Now they are outliers. Soon, like pro-life
Democrats, they may be altogether extinct.
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