By Jonathan Tobin, NATIONAL REVIEW, May 18 2018
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/democrats-israel-tipping-point/
Over the past half-century, Republicans and Democrats have exchanged identities on Middle East issues. Republicans are now the lockstep pro-Israel party, and the Democrats are deeply divided about their attitudes toward the Jewish state. And as polling from both the Pew Research Center and Gallup indicated earlier this year, the split between the two major parties on Israel is growing.
The previous administration accelerated these trends. President Barack Obama’s eight years were dedicated to creating what he called more “daylight” between the U.S. and Israel, and support for the Iran nuclear deal became a litmus test of Democratic-party loyalty. President Donald Trump has worked to overturn Obama’s Middle East policies, putting the remaining pro-Israel Democrats in a difficult political situation. Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, as well as his abandonment of the Iran deal, have been cheered by the Netanyahu government but panned by most Democrats, including some who in the past have advocated both of those positions.
But reactions to the latest round of violence in the Middle East shows that the Democrats’ drift may be speeding up still more, with the party veering toward anti-Israel hostility.
It is one thing for most Democrats to treat the opening of the new embassy in Jerusalem as if it were a Trump rally and therefore to be avoided — the only Democrat in attendance was former senator Joseph Lieberman — rather than a celebration of the alliance. But the deaths of dozens of Palestinians in the course of a “march of return” in which thousands sought to rush Israel’s border provided an opportunity to take the temperature of the party on the relationship, and the results were far from good.
While the Trump administration backed Israel’s right to defend its border with as much force as necessary, most Democrats didn’t agree. Many responded as the Obama administration would have been expected to, denouncing the supposedly “disproportionate” tactics of the Israel Defense Forces but also noting the role of the Hamas terrorist group, which rules Gaza, in fomenting the violence.
Representative Joseph Kennedy III, a rising star in the party who gave the official Democratic response to Trump’s State of the Union address earlier this year, provided a good example of this two-faced approach when he managed to cram criticism of Israel’s “excessive use of force,” a denunciation of Hamas, support for moving the embassy, and a claim that the embassy’s “hasty relocation” by Trump was the ultimate cause for all the violence into one two-paragraph statement.
But a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo from 13 Senate Democrats suggests the party may be at a tipping point.
The letter was organized by once and perhaps future presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders (Vt.) and was joined by Senator Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), another likely White House hopeful. Over the course of two pages laying out concern for the Palestinians and a desire to resume funding for a U.N. refugee agency fatally compromised by Hamas, the senators showed little interest in the terror group’s responsibility for the violence or the dismal situation in Gaza. Indeed, Sanders’s press release touting the letter denounced the actions of “Israeli snipers” but made no mention at all of Hamas.
Sanders has been outspoken in denouncing Israel for its use of “disproportionate force” and seemed to take at face value Hamas’s claim that the “march of return” was a civil-rights demonstration. He failed to note that the march was motivated — as the use of the word “return” indicates — by support for the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state via the forced entry of millions of descendants of 1948 refugees. He also ignored the fact that most of the Palestinians who were killed while attempting to dismantle the fence were, as the terror group has admitted, Hamas operatives — and that the crowds rushing the fence were armed with Molotov cocktails and IEDs and attempted to launch incendiaries across the border to ignite wildfires. Yet many on the left, including the media, stubbornly depicted the march as the moral equivalent of the 1965 March on Selma.
It is obvious how these views could force a schism in the party. Israel was the one issue over which Sanders and Hillary Clinton had a substantive disagreement during their Brooklyn debate; the former secretary of state took Sanders to task for his willingness to spout Hamas talking points about the 2014 Gaza war. Many Democrats, including Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and House minority whip Steny Hoyer, have remained faithful supporters of Israel in spite of the Netanyahu government’s embrace of Trump. And political observers have not forgotten the spectacle at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, where the party’s leadership squelched the clear opposition of the delegates on the floor to a resolution supporting Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
The problem for pro-Israel Democrats is that their party, increasingly dependent on minority voters, has become vulnerable to intersectional arguments in which the Palestinian war on Israel is a Third World parallel to the Black Lives Matter movement. That factor helps account for the fact that sympathy for Israel as measured by the polls is so low among Democrats when compared to Republicans. According to Pew, Republicans back Israel against the Palestinians by a staggering 79 percent to 6 percent margin, while Democrats are split 27–25 percent on the issue. Gallup shows that 87 percent of Republicans sympathize more with Israel than with the Palestinians, while the same is true of only 49 percent of Democrats. While both polls show that large majorities of Americans overall back Israel, the partisan differences, which have been in place for two decades, are growing.
In a party whose center of gravity has shifted strongly toward the “resistance” left since Clinton’s defeat, it remains to be seen whether another relatively centrist candidate like her can defeat one who is critical of Israel and supportive of Palestinian ambitions.
The truth about the Gaza violence — including the facts that most of those killed were members of Hamas, and that the demonstrations ceased the moment the terror group decided it was being asked to pay too high a price for damaging Israel’s image — hasn’t seemed to influence the Left’s view of the Middle East.
The willingness of the liberal mainstream media to jump on the anti-Israel and anti-Trump bandwagon with respect to both Jerusalem and Gaza has also made it harder for pro-Israel candidates to prevail, or even to credibly speak for Democrats, on these issues. A New York Daily News front page that denounced Ivanka Trump as “Daddy’s Little Ghoul” for smiling during the dedication of the new embassy while Palestinians were killed in Gaza indicated that hatred for the president is influencing the way many liberals think about Israel.
If Democratic politicians are showing they care more about not offending intersectional ideology than about the sentiments of most voters outside of the Left, the problem for the party’s pro-Israel wing is apparent. With many Democrats (like the dwindling band of Never Trump conservatives) now thinking that they must oppose anything Trump supports, it remains to be seen whether party centrists can reverse this trend so long as Israelis are cheering Trump’s decisions.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS and a contributor to the National Review, the New York Post, the Federalist, Haaretz and the New York Jewish Week.
This is why I wonder why Jews who support the survival of Israel and the safety of its people continue to vote for the Democratic party. The words "Never forget" are being, IMO, forgotten.
Iv'e come to the conclusion that a heritage of liberal politics comes first with American Jews. That priority will finally be put to the test as the left continues to turn against Israel. I say continues, because that animosity has been going on for a long time.
It is foolish to put the Middle East anywhere on the left/right spectrum.
There are far too many topics that are now "decided" by tribalism... We don't need to artificially reduce yet another complex topic to "us versus them".
Why is a right-wing journal promoting division on the left, I wonder??
Because it's happening, and the fact that not one Democratic lawmaker attended the opening ceremony is proof of it. I appreciate your comment Bob Nelson, because it isn't as important for your people to never forget, as it is for mine, and my concern is that I believe they are forgetting.
I don't consider the embassy move to be either smart or significant. It was a needless poke in the eye. I wouldn't have attended either.
The protest is against Trump's heedless foreign "policy" decisions. Not against Israel.
Personally I don't care WHAT wing, left, right, east, west, or even Buffalo chicken wing the author/source leans towards if its facts check out - please point out what is "fake news" in the article. How about that Bernie Sanders isn't exactly the best friend Israel has ever had.
Pussy pussy diplomacy has achieved fuck all with the Palestinians for how many decades? As I'm sure you know they only respect strength and power, or else give them the moon and the stars and maybe, just maybe, they won't demand the rest of the universe. With what Trump did is show them that their intransigence is going to cost them more and more, so either shit or get off the pot. When the rest of the world wises up and doesn't come to their rescue, and although they're trying to sneak in the back door using the UN, they're not going anywhere until they realize that they're just going to lose more and more until they end up with nothing which just might happen if they don't make a deal.
So in your opinion Israel is the only country in the world that isn't entitled to decide what city is to be their capital, i.e. not the one that was their capital for thousands of years? Seems to be America has for quite a few years decided by law to move its Embassy to Jerusalem and finally America has a POTUS with the balls to do it. I have no love for Trump, but he just might be the best friend Israel has ever had and will ever have.
I didn't use that term. The seed isn't "news" at all; it is opinion. That's not a problem, intrinsically... but as I implied, I suspect an ulterior motive.
Sanders's position is well known, and (sadly) there are surely some who will follow him on the ME because of his positions on other issues. Gosh!HHow shocking!
I'm sorry, Buzz... but I read this as an attempt to stir the Democratic pot from afar.
Sorry, I should not have used the word "news", but please do us all a favour and point out what is false in the facts that are related upon which the author provides his opinion.
I don't think you and I have the same understanding of "opinion". In this piece, Mr Tobin gives us a few "items" of current events, and from them draws a conclusion. That is an "opinion", differing from a "study" in that Tobin doesn't pretend that his supporting facts are exhaustive. He doesn't pretend to look at other possible conclusions. He expresses an opinion.
That's OK. If we must return to basic underlying data all the time, conversation would be a terrible slog.
So it's up to us readers to ask ourselves the appropriate questions. Did Tobin expose all pertinent data? Did he explain, convincingly, why the facts that he chose as relevant are indeed relevant... and why those that he chose not to mention are not relevant?
Tobin doesn't say anything "false"... but he doesn't convince me of the pertinence of his thesis.
For whom is Tobin writing? Few liberals read the National Review, so that's probably not his target audience. OTOH, "serious conservatives" do read the National Review. So I wonder if Tobin isn't doing the tribalist thing: producing a thesis that may not stand much scrutiny, but which will motivate his target audience.
It is absolutely -pitiful the manner in which the liberals on here support Palestine's violence.
Israeli soldiers are ordered to shoot unarmed Palestinians as a matter of policy and you think the main need is to condemn the Palestinians. Holy Moly!
They were looking for violence
The left refuses to understand that. Willful ignorance.
If there IS such a "policy" it was to shoot in the legs those who were trying to break through the fence and those attacking the soldiers with molotov cocktails, rocks, etc. It's been admitted by a Hamas Official that 50 of the 60 who were killed were Hamas terrorists. If a soldier fires at someone's legs and at the same time the person falls, it is possible that the shot will kill him, but then I'm no expert on firearms, not like the American gun enthusiasts.
Wow!. What a very big, wide brush you use to paint all Liberals on NT with, when YOU have no knowledge that it is true. Political hate much, eh?
It is a wide brush 'cause I needed to cover all the hate for Israel that I have read.
Nah....you just need to express you hate for all Liberals, and use any reason to express that hate. Ya ain't foolin' anyone with the lame excuses.
hate for liberals? that is so funny, but I am considering the source of that comment. fits right in.
No one on NT is more liberal than I... but I am a vociferous critic of the PA, and even more of Hamas.
The Middle East is not a left/right topic.
I can second that for Bob. I have known him for 10 years and this has always been his position. It is not a left / right issue, but rather what narrative they are believing and how well they know the history of the region.
Actually, I doubt that anyone on NT is more knowledgeable of the ME history of Israel than Bob Nelson, and I will vouch for the fact as well that his feelings and opinion about it are IMO on the money, notwithstanding what I said to him above.
To me, the issue is not whether the left is abandoning Israel but whether the right is ginning up unnecessary conflict to pander to Israel. The Palestinians have long had a claim to East Jerusalem under international law. Moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem essentially extinguishers that claim by recognizing that Israel can claim the entire city. This has absolutely no benefit to US foreign policy. In fact, it’s like sticking a match to dry tender because it will inflame millions throughout the Muslim world and fuel more extremism. Although I think Democrats are absolutely insufferable on some issues, I applaud those on the left who have the sense to speak out in opposition to something so ill-advised.
Very true, and thank you for pointing that out. It is a fact that many on the right do their best to ignore. It is time that those on the right start to think for themselves instead of blindly walking in lock-step with all that our President impulsively does that can bring harm to our own country, as well as Israel.
Exactly.
So every American government since Clinton has intended to "break" what you call International Law (where is that law binding? On Mars? As binding as a UN Resolution?) because they PROMISED (to assure Jewish votes and money) to move the Embassy to Jerusalem.
But you want International Law? Here it is. Ted Belman is a retired lawyer, and in fact he was my classmate in law school and his interest for years has been the legal and historical basis for Israel's legitimacy in ALL of Israel, including Judea and Samaria. I think Bob Nelson, who has also done a lot of research and on a previous site and here published a four-part legal and historical series of the legitimacy as well would confirm it.
Every American President has been smart enough not to actually move the embassy until this dope.
Un-promise it and move the embassy back to Tel Aviv. I’m interested in protecting American interests, not furthering an Israeli land grab. Frankly, I think Israel wants the embassy in Jerusalem to help lay claim to the entire city. That creates conflict instead of peace talks. Without peace talks, Israel can occupy the land indefinitely. But Israel is surrounded by 300 million Arabs and one day, when we’re no longer willing or able to protect Israel, the Arabs will take the land back by force. As I said many times before, I think ending Zionism as South Africa ended apartheid, makes more sense. Make it one country since Israel has seized so much land that a viable two-state solution is no longer possible.
I'm sorry to say I support some but not all of Israeli's acts or actions and I don't think too much of BeeBee either. BeeBee is drooling for a war for the U.S. to get into ( that is why the Conservatives love him and Israel, o boy another glorious war in the middle east for the U.S. to get into.) I don't see Israel rushing Iran and why should they if the most expen$ive military in the world is willing to spend their lives and money? Well not THEIR lives, our political leaders, or any of BeeBee's family, some other mothers kids can go die or come back impaired.
Do we work for BeeBee now since he passed some cash in Congress and patted trump on the head or is this just going to be a rental?
Can you explain what you mean by "BeeBee" "passed some cash in Congress"?
Maybe he meant “gas” not “cash”.
I'm sure nightwalker is capable of speaking for himself. You need not try to make NT members into ventriloquist's dummies to speak for you.
What Trump did by moving the embassy is he removed one of the Palestinian's bargaining chips for peace. Decades of pussy-foot diplomacy have done nothing to pull the Palestinians out of their intransigence, so a different tack was obviously needed. In any negotiation to reach a settlement, concessions need to be made by both sides. Israel has made concessions, like releasing prisoners with blood on their hands, a moratorium on settlement building, giving up land, all to no avail, and the Palestinians have made NO concessions. Pulling the Palestinian's chips one at a time just might make them actually start to negotiate.
There are more than 100 Muslims on this planet for every Jew. Rhetoric like your own makes Jews less safe...
Perhaps if non-Jews non-Muslims would can their counterproductive shit stirring peace might have a chance.
Butt, that is never going to happen. Is it? Exactly whose best interest is it in to keep the world mad at Israel?
It wasn't a Jew or Muslim I read who said of Palestinians, "They have no souls", and "They all deserve to die".
Nope, that was said by a non-Jew and a non-Muslim of the Palestinians who died in the recent Gaza protests...
You're blaming me for being the cause of anti-Semitism? You're blaming me for what the Qoran says about killing the Jews and preached by the Imams? Why don't you blame me for the Holocaust while you're at it?
Thank you for that brilliant opinion.
While Obama was in office, the Israeli PM came and went AROUND him to speak directly to congress, talking about how Iran hates the U.S. and how close Iran was just about ready to make the bomb (as he has for the last decade, about how close they are to having their own nukes) since congress won't go to the toilet unless someone gives them a dollar, and there are Israeli lobbyists, I imagine some money was involved in there somewhere.
Just recently, the U.S. sent Iran a list of 10-12 DEMANDS that Iran is sure to refuse to comply with, and one of trump's troops said that the U.S. will lay down the tightest sanctions ever.
Should lead to full-out war soon enough.
Obama and his administration were notified ahead of time of Netanyahu's intention to ACCEPT CONGRESS' INVITATION to speak to them, and did nothing about it. The truth about how close Iran was to, and their intent, to make nukes has just been revealed by the documentation the Mossad was able to uncover (as it was being saved in order to continue the process as soon as they wanted). You're accusing Congress of being bribed by Israel and/or AIPAC in order to be Israel's back? Well, obviously Obama didn't get any money because he STABBED ISRAEL'S BACK before he emptied the drawers in the Oval Office. It was the people of Israel he stabbed, because they are the ones who would suffer for it, not Netanyahu. I dare you to post actual proof of AIPAC or Israel clandestinely handing money to American lawmakers, because you can't but you're safe hiding behind a pseudonym because of that slander.
Am I wrong to believe that what lawmakers, who want their consituents' votes, will do in order to stay in power (and surely you don't deny that they are there for the power) is to pass such legislation as the majority of their constituents would prefer, and my understanding is that at least up until recently the vast majority of their constituents favoured Israel over the Palestinians. More recently, the Democrats are turning away from Israel (I wonder if that has anything to do with Ellison and Bernie Sanders both of whom have clearly made it obvious that they prefer that the Palestinians get what they want without giving any concessions).
No, I think the U.S. will probably always go with Israel over the Palestinians, and the Muslim idea of Religion by force by its extremists is NEVER going to win them any friends. Israel is now and always has been in a bad fix, as in a bad location surrounded by enemies since biblical times. (I means the enemies, not Israel.)
LOL No, I can't prove any money changed hands, but like I said, it's Congress and if you lived in the U.S. and got all the news we're pelted with on a daily basis, that may make more sense to you.
As per the original agreement, as I understand it as explained to me by two people and a documentary, (doesn't mean I have it completely right) was Jerusalem was to be shared between the two countries because both countries had holy places in it. Isn't giving Jerusalem to Israel breaking the deal all three countries (Britain being the third) agreed to in '48 or '49? Jerusalem was a balance point, now it's gone. That's why the U.S. didn't recognize it as Israel's for all these years and Britain set it up that way in the first place.
Now trump gave Jerusalem to Israel, and they shot some Palestinians crowding the fence (not defending either side, but wouldn't some water cannons have worked?) and now the Palestinians won't ever get "the Rock" or "The Mound" which is triple holy, the first church (WITH the Arc of the Covenant) was built there, I believe Christ gave a rather famous sermon there, and Mohammad assented to Heaven from there and Palestinians decided they HAVE to have so they can have it in the Capital of their proposed State.
So, now there will be more missile attacks, more retaliatory air strikes, and if the U.S. goes at Iran, Putin will too and all the side countries will pick a side and we can all go to the dance. I'll bet China goes neutral, until someone invites them into the game with a air strike or something similar.
The last thing I would ever want to use as a reason to go have a major conflict is over RELIGION, I'm not Religious, and I don't WANT Armageddon, I want other options.
LOL again, And I happen to like the name "nightwalker", that's why I made it, I thought it showed a little imagination and flair.
When you speak of an agreement in 1948 you are speaking of the UN Partition Plan. Although Israel agreed with it at the time, the Arabs did not, and in fact they not only did not agree, the surrounding nations invaded Israel instead. Abbas declared a year or two ago that not accepting Partition was the biggest mistake.
I think that perhaps you should read the actual legal and historical series of events, mandates, treaties and agreements, that justify that Israel is entitled to Israel including Judea and Samaria, and that includes all of Jerusalem. Ted Belman is a lawyer who was in fact my classmate in law school, and his life has been devoted to researching and propounding the chain that leads to his treatise:
Bob Nelson, an NT member who often posts here also researched the rights of Israel, and came to the same conclusion, and not only posted a four-part series providing the evidence on a previous web site we are not entitled to mention, but also in the past on this website, thenewstalkers. Perhaps it's time for him to repeat it to educate those who need to know the actual facts, and the truth. That means, in my opinion and obviously others, that Israel is entitled to Jerusalem.
As for your suggestion water cannons at the Gaza border, here is another article for you to read, that makes it quite clear why the IDF did what was necessary, killing 50 Hamas terrorists and a few Islamic Jihad terrorists, out of the 62 who were killed.
The mainstream media is exceptionally effective in imposing its anti-Israel bias on those who don't know the truth. I have elsewhere shown how MSN has trashed ethical journalism to create anti-Israel hatred in its readers.
Buzz is right about the UN partition plan, except for a detail: it was accepted by the Jewish Agency (led by Ben Gurion). Israel was declared to exist six months later, the day before the expiration of the Palestinian Mandate.
The Arab refusal began the day after the UN vote, when all the Arab UN delegations unanimously condemned the plan.
It's important to know this history. It's important to realize that all of the suffering of the last seventy years could have been avoided if the Arabs had not been radically opposed to the existence of a Jewish state. The suffering of the Palestinian people is due to Arab intransigence.
Bravo Bob, eventually the world will realize who is right. Unfortunately the oil-hungry States, and those bound to the hatred dictated by their religion may never admit it.
Seems I missed a few things, thanks for the links.
I just hope this doesn't spiral out of control.