If pro-Israel Democrats become extinct, what will liberal Jews do?

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 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. Among 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-Az), 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

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.

© JNS.