AIPAC-funded Democrats’ phony “break” with Israel is a stopgap measure to try and avoid turning opposition to the Jewish state into a litmus test for the midterms and the 2028 presidential primaries, CNN reports.
From CNN, “Pro-Israel Democrats try breaking with Netanyahu to stop party’s shift amid Gaza crisis”:
Fearing Zionism could die among Democrats, many party leaders are explicitly breaking with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to try to stop anti-Israel attitudes from becoming a litmus test for next year’s midterms and the 2028 presidential primaries.
But privately, several tell CNN, they worry it may be too late.
Last week’s failed resolution to block new arms sales to Israel, supported by a record number of Senate Democrats, was just the start. A new letter to recognize a Palestinian state is gaining signatures in the House. Devoted allies of Israel are speaking out against its government, brushing off whatever texts and phone calls they’ve been getting from the dwindling number of party voters or donors still standing steadfast behind Israeli actions in Gaza nearly two years after Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack.
It’s no longer just the far left rejecting Netanyahu’s years of identifying more with Republicans. There is also a bitter backlash among many Democratic politicians, who have felt bullied by the Israeli government and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a lobbying group, and there’s revulsion over the images of starvation and dying children.
“We can disagree about a lot of things in the foreign policy space, but there’s no room to tolerate mass starvation,” said Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz, who is Jewish and widely seen as one of the party’s future leaders in the Senate. Schatz argues there’s a conflation of opposing the Israeli government and opposing Israel’s right to exist that he calls “ridiculous” and an “intentional strategy” meant to distract.
“I think there’s a recognition that Netanyahu is making Israel and Israelis and Jews unsafe all over the world,” Schatz said. “More and more of us are saying so and voting accordingly.”
[…] Leaders of multiple Jewish and pro-Israel groups told CNN privately that they have grimly determined their best and most practical approach is essentially to quietly wait out the trauma and hope the politics turns. There’s another Israeli election next year, and while Netanyahu is now in a minority coalition, he has been counted out before.
The same is of course true among “liberal Zionist” commentators like Jon Stewart and others, as I wrote about last week.
Hellbound and Down 