Queasy alliances and the progressive left’s turn against Israel

The victory of Dr. Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Democratic primary is the progressive left’s latest success. In the face of such successes, those of us who grew up as typical 20th-century liberals are continually reminded of the differences between that political identity and that of 21st-century progressives. One of these gaps, felt intimately by American Jews, their families and their friends, is the Democratic Party’s rapidly shifting stance on Israel.

Already under assault before the latest and worst Gaza war, initiated by the Hamas atrocities against Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, 2023, the erstwhile pro-Israel stance of the Democratic Party mainstream has collapsed.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government prosecuted its war against Hamas in Gaza brutally. The extreme suffering of Palestinian Gazans has been thoroughly discussed. The extreme suffering of those Israelis killed, raped and abducted has also been thoroughly discussed. So has the failure, corruption and moral myopia of the Netanyahu government. Even the tensions within American Jewry on Israel’s behavior have been aired, with gusto, by The New York Times and other traditional outlets.

Many Jews, not only those under 30, have fundamentally rethought their support of Israel. Still others feel queasy about this reconsideration. That queasiness is what I wish to validate.

El-Sayed has condemned antisemitism, as has New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the progressives’ most famous figure. How is it, then, that Michigan’s Attorney General Dana Nessel is set to skip the state’s Democratic Party convention due to safety fears and targeted antisemitic harassment?

Please note, Michigan is a state with active right-wing militias that planned to kidnap their own governor, Gretchen Whitmer. But threats and violence are not the monopoly of the right. Some of us who have been following the shenanigans at coastal universities or who work at their heartland counterparts will not be shocked by Nessel’s non-appearance. After all, these “progressives” were our students just a few years ago. However, while we may not be shocked, we should be outraged.

In a recent New York Times column, Thomas L. Friedman bemoaned Mamdani’s calls for Netanyahu’s imprisonment as a failure to unite the large Jewish and Muslim populations of New York City. Friedman seems (wittingly or unwittingly) naïve about Mamdani’s desire to play to his audience.

Consider Mamdani’s statement supporting Iranians, telling them they are part of the fabric of the city, which they are. But you will look for a similar statement on expatriate Israelis in vain. The ethnic enclave map published by his administration nearly erased the Italian, Irish and Jewish presence in the city.

Moreover, while Mamdani condemned the stabbing of a Jewish man on Tisha B’Av, he ignores statistics linking contemporary antisemitic violence with anti-Israel rhetoric. Charismatic politicians, which Mamdani and El-Sayed certainly are, know how to signal to their followers that the transgressive is permissible.

El-Sayed opposes military aid to Israel. When pressed, he says he also opposes military aid to any “ethnostate,” including his own ancestral Egypt. In this, El-Sayed is more consistent than Mamdani, who does not object to aid to other countries. Whether ending foreign aid is wise or foolish—and it might be recalled that Trump defunded USAID—it is certainly a double standard to say that the United States should fund all allies except Israel. To oppose foreign aid to Israel is not antisemitic; to oppose foreign aid only to Israel is.

The truth is that El-Sayed is among the growing number of progressives and others who state as fact that Israel is an apartheid state that committed genocide in Gaza. Israeli Arabs, who are full citizens, do not live in an apartheid state. Regarding the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, the policies of the current Israeli government have been despicable, but the territory has not been annexed and hopefully won’t be. Apartheid, by definition, is a state policy, and Israel has no such policy.

As unpalatable as a two-state solution may be to both sides, it is still more likely to resolve the conflict than unending occupation or a one-state solution that makes Jews a minority in their own country. The issue of whether the Netanyahu government and the IDF have committed genocide is a judicial question, not a fact. In the view of most Israelis, the target of the reprisal war against Hamas was Hamas, a fundamentalist Islamic organization whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel and consistently targeted Israeli civilians before and throughout the entire war. The reality of so many civilian casualties among Palestinians, possibly as many as 70,000, is devastating but could have been prevented had Hamas laid down its arms.

El-Sayed rarely mentions antisemitism without mentioning Islamophobia. The same goes for Mandani. Islamophobia is real, pernicious and worthy of condemnation. American Muslims are entitled to all the rights and responsibilities that American Christians, Jews, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists and atheists are entitled to. It is certainly absurd to think that sharia law will be imposed upon Oklahomans, which doesn’t stop Republican candidates from stirring up fears that it’s a possibility. If it’s objectionable for Qatar to buy up American farmland, then it’s objectionable for China or Sweden to do so as well.

Being a comparably small American religious minority, it is no surprise that American Jews check their comments against a basic standard of fairness and relevance. The 20th-century liberal and the 21st-century progressive are on the same page here.

But it does not seem irrelevant to note that El-Sayed’s parents were both Egyptian-born. Egypt was at war with Israel for over three decades, ethnically cleansed its ancient Jewish community, targets its current Coptic Christian minority and has done little or nothing to curb antisemitism in its own media. Likewise, it does not seem irrelevant that Mandani’s father is entirely at home in the post-colonialist, anti-Western atmosphere of Columbia University.

The views of parents are not automatically those of their children. The rise of today’s progressivism among young people is evidence enough of that. But absent any indication to the contrary, it is not unrealistic or Islamophobic to assume some influence.

It is entirely understandable that American Jews don’t wish to be thought of as or wish to be Islamophobic. But our tendency to avoid criticism of anti-Israel figures as a result has become Islamophobia-phobic.

Some of the more absurd comments made by progressives—such as Cea Weaver’s call to “elect more Communists”—may be dismissed as woefully ignorant of history. But Jews who sense something rotten in the state of Michigan or New York should trust their sense of smell.

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