An interesting research project would be to document how the Israeli operatives and/or AIPAC came to convince the public that criticism of the state of Israel is equivalent to anti-semitism. That has kept a lot of politicians quiet.
It’s much simpler. Follow US law and a real America First policy. Speak the truth.
There is no doubt that the current Israeli government & military leaders—not the Israeli people, not the opposition parties and definitely not Jewish people outside of Israel—have committed crimes against humanity and violated the Arms Export Control Act.
For most of the Gaza offensive, Israel prevented access to adequate food, water, medical care and shelter. All of those are an occupiers responsibility in wartime.
The average Gazan, including those killed, wasn’t old enough to vote when Hamas took power and stopped having elections. The Netanyahu government had more to do with putting Hamas in charge as a divide & conquer strategy to prevent the Palestinian Authority from being able to represent all Palestinians in negotiating for a 2 state solution than the average Gazan https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
At a time when Trump has slashed purchases of US farm crops to feed hungry kids here and abroad, slashed ACA premium subsidies, cut FEMA, and harmed working class Americans in numerous ways, we are supplying Israel with $6B a year in weapons https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-foreign-aid-does-the-us-provide/countries/israel/ that are being used in a way that makes most of the world hate us.
Trump is a master at directing hateful blame towards others for the things he is doing from inflation to Israel. His favorite plane donor, Qatar, not Ivy League students, is the biggest financial donor to Hamas:
We have supplied Israel with F-15 and F-16 fighter bomber jets, attack helicopters and Blackhawk troop transport helicopters that fly close to 180 mph in a small country. They have world class tanks and armored vehicles. Despite that, the October 7 attack was carried out with ultralight aircraft, pickup trucks and motorbikes. How did the same military that destroyed Iranian air defenses let this crude attack succeed for so long?
The IDF had intelligence that Hamas was training for such an attack, but the border was barely defended. Netanyahu really doesn’t want the world to know what really went wrong:
Why the foot dragging on finding out if there are still critical issues in Israeli security? Is the real answer Netanyahu’s right wing allies who want a Jewish state “from the River to the sea” wanted enough Israeli deaths to get public support for mass killing of civilians in Gaza and intentionally ignored intelligence and allowed the death toll to climb before mounting a response?
“…even Hamas leaders themselves have noted the group’s surprise at the ease with which its operatives breached the barrier separating the Gaza Strip from Israel, as well as the slowness of the Israeli response…”
“for more than a year before October 7, the IDF had reportedly been in possession of a document, the “Jericho Wall” file, that outlines a plan to invade Israel that largely corresponds to the October 7 events, as well as the training required to carry out such an operation.77 A report by Channel 12 alleges the document had been seen by IDF intelligence chief MG Aharon Haliva, 8200 commander BG Yossi Sariel, Gaza Division commander BG Avi Rosenfeld, and then IDF Southern Command chief Maj. Gen. Eliezer Toledano.”
Until there is a clear accounting of what happened, Israeli rebuilding of Gaza infrastructure and providing essentials, stopping military aid is long over due and better spent helping Americans.
We hear a lot about the Ten Commandments from Trump minions. One them is “Thou shalt not kill.”
Perhaps the best thing is to make it clear that you support the Israeli people, but you are opposed to the Netanyahu government, and that government has committed heinous war crimes, and is trying to subvert, if not completely end, democracy and the rule of law in Israel. You come out strongly against those crimes, including the terrible crimes they let the settlers commit, and make clear that if those crimes don't end there will be a high price to pay with regard to our aid and international support.
I don’t like to think of this as a binary choice. I have a lot of sympathy for both the Israelis and the Palestinians. I have no regard for and zero trust in Netanyahu and wouldn’t give Israel a dime while he is PM.
Dems need to reject all AIPAC money. AIPAC is a toxicant that contaminates everything it touches and the ultimate shanda for the goyim (a Jewish disgrace before the gentiles).
It has spent at least five million dollars on a smear campaign against Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss for the 2026 9th congressional district of IL Democratic primary (the district that I am a resident of) in order to prop up the campaign of IL State Senator Laura Fine because she panders to its every whim. So, f___ AIPAC! It’s an enemy within, if there ever was one.
Also, I have been making small donations to Dr. Abdul El-Sayed’’s Michigan U.S. Senate campaign partly because I thought that he supported sending American made to weapons to Ukraine and Taiwan and only wanted to cut off U.S. military assistance to countries with lousy human rights records.
But if he isn’t willing to vote to send American made weapons to nations that need them to defend freedom, democracy, and human rights (countries like Ukraine and Taiwan), I will switch my support to Mallory McMorrow.
The angst that Democrats have around talking about Israel, and Newsom’s emphasis on the leadership of Israel, should sound familiar. It’s the same problem our friends in Europe have when talking about the US. It’s the difficult separation of the leaders from the country. It’s too easy to view them as the same thing. We know they aren’t and will do well to remember that when the topic is Israel.
Nobody believes that Trump, Biden, or Harris were friends of the Palestinians.
Trump promised a ceasefire; neither Biden nor Harris did. And the truth is, Trump achieved a ceasefire in name, but only a reduced fire in practice, and even that was more than what Biden did or what Harris promised to do.
But there is a bigger issue here, which is maybe coloring your opinion - that people on the left will vote for AIPAC candidates because they are the "lesser of two evils" compared to Republicans.
That is a mistake. People on the left think material support for a genocide is as bad, or worse, than anything Trump has done. Moreover, there is an "absolute" argument - if someone materially supports genocide, then they have disqualified themselves from receiving their vote.
I won't abandon it - that would be suicidally dumb. There will be constructive pro-Israel voices remaining in the party even if the Convention passes shrill resolutions and leftist voters elect morons like Kat Abughazaleh even in districts that have historically elected Jewish or Israel-friendly legislators. And we wouldn't be Bulwark subscribers if we didn't want to hold back Trump's domestic successes nor automatically cede the party to the DSA and its ilk.
I am actually writing an article about this very phenomenon, and I wanted to get your thoughts.
I think that a 3rd party IS possible in the United States, that being the American Zionist Party, or the IsraelFirst Party, or whatever you choose. As unconditional support for Israel has collapsed on the US left and is rapidly collapsing on the right, there will be a number of voters, maybe like you, who won't be comfortable in either existing party.
I think the American Zionist Party could be extremely well-funded and could start off with at least a dozen existing US Senators and probably 1/3 or more of the existing House members, drawing from both Democrats and Republicans. Imagine if AIPAC / the Israel Lobby, pulled all its funding from both Democrats and Republicans, and gave only to the AZP?
Israel is a sovereign state with its own electorate and its own domestic and foreign policy. The Israeli government acts on its own national interests.
So should our government. Our politicians must recognize that U.S. national interests may, or do, not correspond with Israeli national interests and act accordingly.
The Eisenhower administration understood this and acted on their understanding of our interests during the Suez Crisis in 1956.
How Israeli law accords the political needs of that nation's non-Jewish citizens and the Israeli government's relationship with its citizenry are matters that fall within that government's legislative bodies and its legal system.
My personal experience is that some fraction of pro-Israel Jewish Democrats now see support for Israel as the single most important issue in any presidential election. Some of them voted for Trump in 2024 despite the fact that they otherwise loathe Trump and MAGA. Based on this article, they and their campaign contributions (some of them are big $ contributors) are probably lost to the Democrats for the foreseeable future. Then there are other Jewish Democrats who dislike Bibi and his right wing government, find their policies against Palestinians in the West Bank detestable, but also saw the goal, after October 7th, of the military degradation of Hamas in the Gaza War (and it was a war) as imperative, despite the large numbers of Palestinian civilian casualties. They teeter on the edge: they too loathe Trump and MAGA, and will never vote that way no matter how much a Democratic presidential candidate is perceived to waffle on Israel as Newsom now seems to be doing (i.e., plays to the increasingly progressive Democratic base for the primaries and then tries to pivot to a more centrist position on Israel for the general election). But they may very well be Independents by the 2028 presidential election based on what is reported here. Perhaps they are too small a voting bloc to matter much in a presidential election. But they will no longer be reliable Democratic voters. That seems inevitable.
There are big states with significant Jewish populations that could turn a Presidential election: PA, AZ, MI being the most obvious, and that of some other places could turn Senate and House elections. Jewish Democrats have had a long tradition of participating in the political process with disproportionate enthusiasm on subjects well beyond Israel. Gratuitously alienating us is not without its risks.
Americans do not care about international issues. A significant percentage of us would not be able to locate Europe on a globe, let alone Israel or Gaza (welcome to the current American educational system which jettisoned a study of geography decades ago). Nope, the only time foreign wars (incursions, engagements, conflicts, yada, yada, yada) will perk the interest of a vast swathe of the American public is when gas prices soar, shelves are empty in grocery stores, food becomes unaffordable, doctors and nurses have vaporized from the health care system, and sons and daughters begin arriving in body bags in small town American.
I have been a supporter of Israel for as long as I can remember. However I have not or am I now a support of Netanyahu. He, Trump and Putin are what I consider evil. I want this war to end and for this entire admin to be taken down.
I don't see Democrats or anyone else being "skeptical" about Israel. People who are skeptical have their doubts but are open to persuasion. What I see is a big shift to Democrats opposing Israel, or at least the current leadership. And they are right.
When I was growing up support for Israel was part of our DNA, not because "Israel right or wrong" but because we thought Israel was mostly right. Threatened by their neighbors, victimized by terrorism, shunned by most of the world, plucky Israel was easy to root for.
Things couldn't be more different today. A thoroughly corrupt, vicious and racist leadership is impossible to support, and the strength of the far right in Israel makes it tough to imagine a better future. It's shocking to think about how much international goodwill Israel has squandered from the six-day war to today.
Democrats should not contort themselves into finding a way to support Netanyahu's Israel. They are welcome to say they will reconsider once things change, but until they do Israel does not deserve the Democrats' support.
Thanks for this overview . I think the right approach will be pro-Israel but anti Bibi , that is to identify Bibi as who he is without tarnishing all Israelis (so many dual citizens ) and definitely not all Jewish people in the US
An interesting research project would be to document how the Israeli operatives and/or AIPAC came to convince the public that criticism of the state of Israel is equivalent to anti-semitism. That has kept a lot of politicians quiet.
It’s much simpler. Follow US law and a real America First policy. Speak the truth.
There is no doubt that the current Israeli government & military leaders—not the Israeli people, not the opposition parties and definitely not Jewish people outside of Israel—have committed crimes against humanity and violated the Arms Export Control Act.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_Export_Control_Act
For most of the Gaza offensive, Israel prevented access to adequate food, water, medical care and shelter. All of those are an occupiers responsibility in wartime.
The average Gazan, including those killed, wasn’t old enough to vote when Hamas took power and stopped having elections. The Netanyahu government had more to do with putting Hamas in charge as a divide & conquer strategy to prevent the Palestinian Authority from being able to represent all Palestinians in negotiating for a 2 state solution than the average Gazan https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
At a time when Trump has slashed purchases of US farm crops to feed hungry kids here and abroad, slashed ACA premium subsidies, cut FEMA, and harmed working class Americans in numerous ways, we are supplying Israel with $6B a year in weapons https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-foreign-aid-does-the-us-provide/countries/israel/ that are being used in a way that makes most of the world hate us.
Trump is a master at directing hateful blame towards others for the things he is doing from inflation to Israel. His favorite plane donor, Qatar, not Ivy League students, is the biggest financial donor to Hamas:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatari_support_for_Hamas
We have supplied Israel with F-15 and F-16 fighter bomber jets, attack helicopters and Blackhawk troop transport helicopters that fly close to 180 mph in a small country. They have world class tanks and armored vehicles. Despite that, the October 7 attack was carried out with ultralight aircraft, pickup trucks and motorbikes. How did the same military that destroyed Iranian air defenses let this crude attack succeed for so long?
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-844153
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2025/03/israel-inquiry-october-7/682041/
The IDF had intelligence that Hamas was training for such an attack, but the border was barely defended. Netanyahu really doesn’t want the world to know what really went wrong:
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-11-16/ty-article/.premium/netanyahu-government-orders-october-7-probe-stops-short-of-state-commission-of-inquiry/0000019a-8d04-dfa6-ad9e-cda4e27d0000
But some Israeli deaths that day were caused by the IDF Hannibal directive https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-07/israel-hannibal-directive-kidnap-hamas-gaza-hostages-idf/104224430
Why the foot dragging on finding out if there are still critical issues in Israeli security? Is the real answer Netanyahu’s right wing allies who want a Jewish state “from the River to the sea” wanted enough Israeli deaths to get public support for mass killing of civilians in Gaza and intentionally ignored intelligence and allowed the death toll to climb before mounting a response?
“…even Hamas leaders themselves have noted the group’s surprise at the ease with which its operatives breached the barrier separating the Gaza Strip from Israel, as well as the slowness of the Israeli response…”
“for more than a year before October 7, the IDF had reportedly been in possession of a document, the “Jericho Wall” file, that outlines a plan to invade Israel that largely corresponds to the October 7 events, as well as the training required to carry out such an operation.77 A report by Channel 12 alleges the document had been seen by IDF intelligence chief MG Aharon Haliva, 8200 commander BG Yossi Sariel, Gaza Division commander BG Avi Rosenfeld, and then IDF Southern Command chief Maj. Gen. Eliezer Toledano.”
https://ctc.westpoint.edu/the-october-7-attack-an-assessment-of-the-intelligence-failings/
Until there is a clear accounting of what happened, Israeli rebuilding of Gaza infrastructure and providing essentials, stopping military aid is long over due and better spent helping Americans.
We hear a lot about the Ten Commandments from Trump minions. One them is “Thou shalt not kill.”
Perhaps the best thing is to make it clear that you support the Israeli people, but you are opposed to the Netanyahu government, and that government has committed heinous war crimes, and is trying to subvert, if not completely end, democracy and the rule of law in Israel. You come out strongly against those crimes, including the terrible crimes they let the settlers commit, and make clear that if those crimes don't end there will be a high price to pay with regard to our aid and international support.
I don’t like to think of this as a binary choice. I have a lot of sympathy for both the Israelis and the Palestinians. I have no regard for and zero trust in Netanyahu and wouldn’t give Israel a dime while he is PM.
Dems need to reject all AIPAC money. AIPAC is a toxicant that contaminates everything it touches and the ultimate shanda for the goyim (a Jewish disgrace before the gentiles).
It has spent at least five million dollars on a smear campaign against Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss for the 2026 9th congressional district of IL Democratic primary (the district that I am a resident of) in order to prop up the campaign of IL State Senator Laura Fine because she panders to its every whim. So, f___ AIPAC! It’s an enemy within, if there ever was one.
Also, I have been making small donations to Dr. Abdul El-Sayed’’s Michigan U.S. Senate campaign partly because I thought that he supported sending American made to weapons to Ukraine and Taiwan and only wanted to cut off U.S. military assistance to countries with lousy human rights records.
But if he isn’t willing to vote to send American made weapons to nations that need them to defend freedom, democracy, and human rights (countries like Ukraine and Taiwan), I will switch my support to Mallory McMorrow.
The angst that Democrats have around talking about Israel, and Newsom’s emphasis on the leadership of Israel, should sound familiar. It’s the same problem our friends in Europe have when talking about the US. It’s the difficult separation of the leaders from the country. It’s too easy to view them as the same thing. We know they aren’t and will do well to remember that when the topic is Israel.
“When I interviewed Newsom last month, he attributed Kamala Harris’s 2024 loss in part to the party’s support of Israel.”
So Trump was a friend of the Palestinians?! Sorry, that dog don’t hunt, Gavin.
That's not quite the correct inference to take.
Nobody believes that Trump, Biden, or Harris were friends of the Palestinians.
Trump promised a ceasefire; neither Biden nor Harris did. And the truth is, Trump achieved a ceasefire in name, but only a reduced fire in practice, and even that was more than what Biden did or what Harris promised to do.
But there is a bigger issue here, which is maybe coloring your opinion - that people on the left will vote for AIPAC candidates because they are the "lesser of two evils" compared to Republicans.
That is a mistake. People on the left think material support for a genocide is as bad, or worse, than anything Trump has done. Moreover, there is an "absolute" argument - if someone materially supports genocide, then they have disqualified themselves from receiving their vote.
It is the time for Dems not to be waffling. The leadership in Israel has been degraded from
stellar leaders to the owned Bibi, who like Trump, has perfected the art of avoiding prosecution for crimes.
Israel has lost the confidence of the US voter because so many of our leaders answer to their $$$$$$.
Enough!
If the Democratic Party abandons Israel, I'll abandon the Democratic Party.
I won't abandon it - that would be suicidally dumb. There will be constructive pro-Israel voices remaining in the party even if the Convention passes shrill resolutions and leftist voters elect morons like Kat Abughazaleh even in districts that have historically elected Jewish or Israel-friendly legislators. And we wouldn't be Bulwark subscribers if we didn't want to hold back Trump's domestic successes nor automatically cede the party to the DSA and its ilk.
Hi Meg,
Sorry to hear that.
I am actually writing an article about this very phenomenon, and I wanted to get your thoughts.
I think that a 3rd party IS possible in the United States, that being the American Zionist Party, or the IsraelFirst Party, or whatever you choose. As unconditional support for Israel has collapsed on the US left and is rapidly collapsing on the right, there will be a number of voters, maybe like you, who won't be comfortable in either existing party.
I think the American Zionist Party could be extremely well-funded and could start off with at least a dozen existing US Senators and probably 1/3 or more of the existing House members, drawing from both Democrats and Republicans. Imagine if AIPAC / the Israel Lobby, pulled all its funding from both Democrats and Republicans, and gave only to the AZP?
https://truthout.org/articles/bipartisan-group-of-senators-meets-with-netanyahu-despite-icc-arrest-warrant/
That would make the AZP a significant, if not a balance-of-power party. Maybe even a majority party?
What do you think?
Remember: Bibi is not”Israel” as Trump is not the United States. I despise both but love both nations.
It’s pretty damn close to the primary reason we lost. Even some of us older folks got bent.
Israel is a sovereign state with its own electorate and its own domestic and foreign policy. The Israeli government acts on its own national interests.
So should our government. Our politicians must recognize that U.S. national interests may, or do, not correspond with Israeli national interests and act accordingly.
The Eisenhower administration understood this and acted on their understanding of our interests during the Suez Crisis in 1956.
How Israeli law accords the political needs of that nation's non-Jewish citizens and the Israeli government's relationship with its citizenry are matters that fall within that government's legislative bodies and its legal system.
As for how Palestine became divided...
https://www.pathkeeper.net/war/palestine.html
My personal experience is that some fraction of pro-Israel Jewish Democrats now see support for Israel as the single most important issue in any presidential election. Some of them voted for Trump in 2024 despite the fact that they otherwise loathe Trump and MAGA. Based on this article, they and their campaign contributions (some of them are big $ contributors) are probably lost to the Democrats for the foreseeable future. Then there are other Jewish Democrats who dislike Bibi and his right wing government, find their policies against Palestinians in the West Bank detestable, but also saw the goal, after October 7th, of the military degradation of Hamas in the Gaza War (and it was a war) as imperative, despite the large numbers of Palestinian civilian casualties. They teeter on the edge: they too loathe Trump and MAGA, and will never vote that way no matter how much a Democratic presidential candidate is perceived to waffle on Israel as Newsom now seems to be doing (i.e., plays to the increasingly progressive Democratic base for the primaries and then tries to pivot to a more centrist position on Israel for the general election). But they may very well be Independents by the 2028 presidential election based on what is reported here. Perhaps they are too small a voting bloc to matter much in a presidential election. But they will no longer be reliable Democratic voters. That seems inevitable.
There are big states with significant Jewish populations that could turn a Presidential election: PA, AZ, MI being the most obvious, and that of some other places could turn Senate and House elections. Jewish Democrats have had a long tradition of participating in the political process with disproportionate enthusiasm on subjects well beyond Israel. Gratuitously alienating us is not without its risks.
Americans do not care about international issues. A significant percentage of us would not be able to locate Europe on a globe, let alone Israel or Gaza (welcome to the current American educational system which jettisoned a study of geography decades ago). Nope, the only time foreign wars (incursions, engagements, conflicts, yada, yada, yada) will perk the interest of a vast swathe of the American public is when gas prices soar, shelves are empty in grocery stores, food becomes unaffordable, doctors and nurses have vaporized from the health care system, and sons and daughters begin arriving in body bags in small town American.
The Dems will lose votes if they take an anti-Israel stance. They don’t have to approve of Netanyahu.
I have been a supporter of Israel for as long as I can remember. However I have not or am I now a support of Netanyahu. He, Trump and Putin are what I consider evil. I want this war to end and for this entire admin to be taken down.
I don't see Democrats or anyone else being "skeptical" about Israel. People who are skeptical have their doubts but are open to persuasion. What I see is a big shift to Democrats opposing Israel, or at least the current leadership. And they are right.
When I was growing up support for Israel was part of our DNA, not because "Israel right or wrong" but because we thought Israel was mostly right. Threatened by their neighbors, victimized by terrorism, shunned by most of the world, plucky Israel was easy to root for.
Things couldn't be more different today. A thoroughly corrupt, vicious and racist leadership is impossible to support, and the strength of the far right in Israel makes it tough to imagine a better future. It's shocking to think about how much international goodwill Israel has squandered from the six-day war to today.
Democrats should not contort themselves into finding a way to support Netanyahu's Israel. They are welcome to say they will reconsider once things change, but until they do Israel does not deserve the Democrats' support.
Thanks for this overview . I think the right approach will be pro-Israel but anti Bibi , that is to identify Bibi as who he is without tarnishing all Israelis (so many dual citizens ) and definitely not all Jewish people in the US