Jonathan Tobin: Is there still hope for American bipartisan support of Israel?
Part of the reason for that is that the two parties have more or less exchanged identities on Israel in the past half-century. Democrats were once the solidly pro-Israel party. Now, its members are deeply divided over it with its left-wing activist wing increasingly influenced by intersectional ideology that falsely claims that the Jewish state embodies “white privilege” and that the Palestinian war to destroy it is somehow akin to the struggle for civil rights in the United States.Commentary Magazine Podcast: The Real Story of The Israel-Gaza War
At the same time, the GOP is now nearly unanimous in its affection for the U.S.-Israel alliance. That trend reached its apotheosis under Trump, who can lay claim to being the most pro-Israel president to date, even if Democrats and the majority of Jewish voters give him no credit for it.
While the congressional leadership of the Democrats still firmly identifies as pro-Israel—as demonstrated by the determination of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer not to let the opposition of the so-called progressive wing of their party stop funding of the Iron Dome missile-defense system earlier this year—members of the party as just as likely to be found among Israel’s most fervent ideological opponents as its friends.
It is wrong to label all Democrats as being as bad as the “Squad.” But when push has come to shove on key issues of interest to the pro-Israel community, most of them fell short. That meant that some who are not only Jewish but who have long claimed to be Israel’s most ardent defenders either joined the other side on the Iran deal—as did former Democratic National Committee Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Fla.)—or simply acquiesced to their party’s betrayal, as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer did.
With courageous exceptions to this standard few and far between, such as Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), who both opposed the Iran deal and called out Tlaib and others for their anti-Semitic invective during the House debate about Iron Dome, it’s possible to argue that perhaps those cheering Haley’s comments are right about AIPAC’s failure and the need to reject bipartisan advocacy.
Yet it’s both premature and unwise to completely write off AIPAC.
It is deeply wrong for Jewish Democrats to accuse their GOP counterparts of politicizing the issue of Israel since it was their party, and not the Republicans, which failed on Iran and Jerusalem, as well as by their cowardly refusal to reject the anti-Semitism of the progressives. But the goal of pro-Israel advocacy can’t be to convince all Jews to become Republicans. That would be true even if it were possible, which it isn’t, given the fact that most believe so-called social-justice issues are actually more important than Israel and fail to see that anti-Semitism is as much a danger on the left as it is on the right.
The objective for the pro-Israel movement is not to destroy the Democrats, but to get them to return to their former stance of strong support and revive a consensus that the left is destroying. That means that efforts to cultivate moderates and even some progressives—and to convince them to back the Jewish state—is still both the right thing to do and good politics must continue. At the moment, that looks like a losing battle, as the party’s growing progressive wing has fallen under the spell of toxic ideas like critical race theory that give a permission slip to anti-Semitism.
In American politics, change is a constant. The left may have thought the future was theirs after the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and the defeat of Trump. But the party’s radical tilt may herald its impending defeat in future elections and a necessary course correction that will eventually bring it back closer to the center. At that point, if AIPAC is still doing its job, pro-Israel Democrats will be there to reap the benefits.
That doesn’t mean Republicans shouldn’t continue to oppose the left’s anti-Israel invective and Biden administration policies that undermine the alliance. Yet in the long run, the pro-Israel community will be stronger if AIPAC is capable of vindicating its bipartisan strategy. If it can’t, then that will be a tragedy for the Democrats, the lobby and Israel.
The podcast crew is joined today by our pal Jonathan Schanzer, whose illuminating new book Gaza Conflict 2021 provides an eye-opening account of the hostilities earlier this year—and a guide to the state of play in the Middle East more broadly.US Jews failed to anticipate antisemitic violence during Gaza conflict – study
A study of antisemitism in the US during Operation Guardian of the Walls in May found that Jewish communal organizations and leaders were taken by surprise by violence against Jews that took place during the conflict.Israel’s UK ambassador evacuated from event under heavy security amid protests
“This time the Jewish community was doubly surprised by the rapid transformation of protests by the American extreme left, especially the pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli groups, into outbreaks of violent antisemitic acts that had broad geographic distribution, and by the increased criticism of Israel among larger circles within the Democratic Party than in the past as well as among several civil social organizations,” wrote Shahar Eilam and Tom Eshed of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
The report, titled “Increased Antisemitism in the United States Following Operation Guardian of the Walls: Permanent or Short-Lived?” also found that American Jews were surprised by the difficulty they experienced “in enlisting their natural allies and partners” in the fight against antisemitism.
“The main question that occupied me was how it was possible that the US Jewish establishment was surprised, despite its deep experience in dealing with similar previous incidents of escalation as part of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, in which there also was a similar dynamic in the US theater,” Eilam told The Times of Israel. “Deep changes in American society are not supposed to surprise the Jewish community.”
Eilam said he was worried by the “delay in the identification and in the deep understanding of the trends, and the hesitance in absorbing their implications and in building appropriate responses by the Jewish community along with its different partners.”
The report argued that the issue of antisemitism is becoming politicized in the US, rendering it “more difficult to form a broad and united front to condemn and combat antisemitism of any type.”
The report is slated for publication on Wednesday.
Israeli Ambassador to the UK Tzipi Hotovely was evacuated under heavy security from an event at the London School of Economics on Tuesday evening amid a large protest by pro-Palesestinian activists against her presence.
Video from the scene showed security guards rushing Hotovely, who was clutching a bouquet of flowers, into a vehicle, while others tried to fend off a group of jeering activists, who chanted, “Aren’t you ashamed?”
Hotovely had been invited by the prestigious university’s student union to take part in a debate forum.
“We will not give in to thuggery and violence,” Hotovely pledged after the incident, according to Ynet. “The State of Israel will send its representatives to every stage.”
Hotovely and the spokesman for Israel’s embassy in London both stressed that the hour-and-a-half event took place in full, and 200 students were able to hear what Israel’s envoy had to say.
“The extremists will continue to demonstrate outside – and the embassy will continue to speak directly with students inside,” the spokesman said.
The event drew widespread opposition from pro-Palestinian and other groups on campus for “platforming racism.”
The protests specifically targeted Hotovely, saying that she had “advocated for settler colonialism, engaged in Islamophobic rhetoric and has perpetuated anti-Palestinian racism.”
Britian’s Home Secretary Priti Patel and Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi condemned the “aggressive and threatening behavior” against Hotovely.
“This is deeply disturbing, I am so sorry Ambassador Hotovely,” Zahawi tweeted.
She later thanked the British government and others “for all the support I have received.”