If hostility toward Israel grows among congressional Democrats, one wonders what will happen to the party. Maybe hordes of Democrats who support Israel will flee to the Republican Party.
Republicans should be careful what they wish for. Democratic refugees could ultimately transform the GOP into a party far more centrist than it ever was. Right-wingers who made the party as creepy as it now is would be marginalized.
Such a prospect arises due to fears that Democrats are becoming progressively hostile to Israel. Three new House members who were elected in November – Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – have been brazen with their attacks on Israel, even on the heels of other House members who were less then friendly to Israel.
Many advocates for the Palestinians often equate their problems with the oppression of racial minorities in America. While Hispanics and African-Americans seek social justice and economic opportunities, they do not intend to subjugate or destroy our white population. The same cannot be said for a large percentage of Palestinians as to their aims with Jews in Israel.
It is difficult to imagine an anti-Israel takeover of the Democratic Party, even in the distant future. The Tlaib-Omar-Cortez trio amounts to only three out of 235 Democrats in the House of Representatives. Even with some other members who might have like-minded views, they still represent a small minority within the party. Yet a mere glimpse across the pond justifies consideration of an It-Can-Happen-Here scenario.
Britain’s Labour Party has long been the political home for the nation’s Jews, but it is no longer your older brother/sister’s Labour Party – the party of the upbeat, all-inclusive Tony Blair, the prime minister who helped Queen Elizabeth retain her crown during the aftermath of Princess Diana’s death. Today, English Jews feel threatened by Labour’s anti-Israel policies and anti-Semitic insults of some of its members.
It is even conceivable that Labour can return to power. Conservative ranks are just as messy and vulnerable to defeat.
Rep. Lee Zeldin, a Jewish Long Islander, is among a group of House Republicans who commenced “resistance” – to borrow a Palestinian term for warring against Israel – toward anti-Israel Democrats during the past week by introducing a bill condemning “anti-Israel and anti-Semitic hatred.” According to The Los Angeles Jewish Journal, the resolution contends that “current Members of Congress have met with, posed for pictures with, and have otherwise embraced (Nation of Islam leader Louis) Farrakhan.”
Tlaib of Detroit and Omar, Minneapolis, are singled out in the far-ranging legislation for supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and it calls out Tlaib for associating with a Hezbollah supporter and Omar for her seven-year-old tweet urging, “May Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.”
Omar last week apologized for the tweet after a New York Times writer criticized her, but she flipped on the BDS issue when after her election she assured a Muslim magazine of her solid support for BDS. If you think her apology is sincere, disregard the remainder of this paranoid commentary.
Zeldin’s resolution follows a Jan. 17 letter from GOP Rep. Brian Babin of Texas asking Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress to block a trip to Israel’s West Bank led by Tlaib, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“To signal to our most threatened ally in the region,” Babin wrote, “that the United States Congress sanctions an official trip to visit Israel’s nemesis would be an exceedingly dangerous path forward. Please consider the damage that a yet (sic) unexperienced and overly caustic Member of Congress may cause to Israeli relations, or the perceptions of our own Jewish-American citizens.”
Anti-Israel sentiments have been evolving in the Democratic Party for years. Both parties have been behind Israel, with most Jews voting Democratic because of domestic policies. However, President Obama’s 2012 Jewish vote dropped roughly 10 points from 78 percent in 2008 amid perceptions that he was betraying Israel.
Predictably, Democrats have evaded recent calls to rebuke or somehow discipline Tlaib, Omar and Ocasio-Cortez, and Omar was even appointed to the Foreign Affairs Committee. Democrats said they have begun discussion of Middle East issues with them. My instinct is that most Jewish Democrats and many pro-Israel Democrats privately despise them. Pelosi, who is Italian-Catholic, is very close to the Jewish community dating back to her youth in Baltimore, and she is a stalwart backer of Israel.
So, pro-Israel Democrats may well be taking a keep-your-enemies-closer approach as they emphasize that Jews chair the two committees and a subcommittee which most directly affect Israel – Eliot Engel of New York for Foreign Affairs; Ted Deutch, Florida, for its Middle East subcommittee; and Nita Lowey, New York, for Appropriations.
Rep. Brad Schneider, a Jewish Democrat from Chicago’s suburbs, told JTA, “The U.S.-Israel relationship has long enjoyed broad bipartisan support in Congress. I have no doubt that this support will continue, including within the House Democratic Caucus.”
For the time being. What to do if the nightmare happens? Democrats can choose between going independent, forming a new party or joining, ahem, the Republican Party. If a sizeable amount of Democrats cross over, they could move the GOP to a most centrist place, which in turn could attract independents who fled the party in the first place.
The right wing would return to the minority and – who knows? – maybe they will just break off and form their own party.
Intriguing how a dispute 5,400 miles away might transform American politics.
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Ticker is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia. He may be contacted via bruce.ticker@sdjewishworld.com
Republished from San Diego Jewish World