Collateral Damage

Most of my American friends and family are ecstatic. The long-awaited Blue Wave swept Democrats into control of both houses of Congress. As a lifelong progressive Democrat, I should be celebrating with them – a victory for progressive values and a rejection of Trump’s corruption, nepotism, and assault on American democracy.

But Israel, Zionism, and Jews were also on the ballot.

And so, rather than celebrating unreservedly, I’m feeling more like collateral damage.

In this election, longstanding anti-Zionist currents in American progressive politics, growing opposition to Israel’s conduct, and disgust with Trump’s second presidency converged in a political wave that may change US-Israel relations for a generation.

Anti-Zionism has long inhabited the margins of American politics. As a student at the University of California, Davis, more than 30 years ago, I debated Palestinian students and their allies who advocated boycotts of Israel as a settler-colonial, apartheid state. I watched as they built coalitions with underrepresented groups and progressive students, arguing that struggles against oppression were interconnected. Within this framework, Zionism became identified with colonialism and oppression, and support for Israel increasingly difficult to reconcile with progressive political identity.

These ideas have circulated for decades at the margins of the American polity, but their influence within the Democratic Party is now nearing center stage. What concerns me is that opposition to Israeli policies is sometimes accompanied by opposition to Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state.

The election provides troubling examples. In Denver, Melat Kiros made anti-Zionism a defining issue in her congressional campaign, opposing Israel’s continued existence as a Jewish state. Rabbi Rachel Kobrin, herself a progressive who calls Israel’s occupation of the West Bank “horrendous,” challenged the notion that condemning a government justifies eliminating its country. In Michigan, an independent PAC supporting Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed produced a vile advertisement linking Americans’ economic difficulties to US support for Israel’s killing of Palestinians. El-Sayed’s campaign disavowed it, but its production illustrates how ugly this rhetoric can become.

These examples don’t represent the Democratic Party as a whole (as Israeli writer and activist Hen Mazzig reminds us, numerous pro-Israel Democrats also won, and the party is far bigger than its loudest anti-Israel voices). But positions once largely confined to campus demonstrations and marginal organizations are entering electoral politics.

I recognize that many of my progressive American Jewish friends are struggling with these same questions. Some are reconsidering their relationship with Israel in light of its government’s conduct. Others remain committed to Israel but are prepared to put concerns about growing anti-Zionism within the Democratic Party aside, at least for now, to defeat Trump and his Republican allies. I understand both responses, even as I worry about where these developments are leading.

There is an important distinction here. Opposition to Israel’s occupation, its military conduct in Gaza, settlement policies, or even American arms sales is entirely legitimate. I share much of that criticism (see, for example, here and here). But questioning Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, dismissing the security and national aspirations of Israeli Jews, or systematically silencing artists, writers, and academics who support Israel, takes us into different territory. Palestinian self-determination should not require denying Jewish self-determination.

Of course, these developments don’t occur in a vacuum. Americans look with profound distaste at Israel’s behavior: its brutal response in Gaza, without a credible recovery plan for its devastated population; its enthusiastic role in attacking Iran; ongoing Jewish terror against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank; and Netanyahu’s most recent assault on the integrity of Israel’s Arab population during our elections. They see Netanyahu’s hubris in Congress and his confidence that Israel’s interests are America’s interests.

Netanyahu bears considerable responsibility for Israel’s predicament. For years he cultivated Republicans, undermining bipartisan American support while alienating Democrats. And now comes the irony: after the Republican defeat, Vice President JD Vance cited changing America’s relationship with Israel among the concerns voiced by voters abandoning his party. After Netanyahu invested so heavily in Republican support, even that relationship is showing cracks.

We may be entering a less friendly phase in US-Israel relations. More worryingly, for some emerging American political voices, Zionism itself has become synonymous with apartheid and genocide. If these opinions gain traction in Washington, much more than foreign aid and arms shipments may be at stake.

We in Israel still have agency. Voting out Netanyahu was an important first step. His government didn’t create American anti-Zionism or antisemitism, but certainly aggravated them. An Israeli government committed to peace, democracy, equality, and diplomacy alongside security could help restore our standing. It may not be enough: some ideological opposition to Zionism will persist regardless of Israeli policies, but a rational and empathetic center continues to flourish in US politics.

There was a time when Martin Luther King Jr. defended Israel’s right to exist, and Pete Seeger and the Weavers sang Israeli songs to enthusiastic American audiences (although that was slightly before my time). Support for Israel was hardly incompatible with American progressive politics. I long for a time when progressivism and Zionism can coexist without support for one being considered a betrayal of the other.

And so I return to the US election results. I am ecstatic, too. As a supporter of public education and health, a scientist concerned with climate change, biodiversity loss, and resilience against pandemics, and someone who despises corruption, nepotism, and the increasing nastiness of public discourse, I have every reason to celebrate.

I don’t want my American friends to abandon their progressive values to support Israel. I want Israel to live by those same values, while its right to exist and its people’s security are not made conditional on the conduct of any government.

Until then, I’ll celebrate the Democratic victory, but with the uneasy feeling that the political movement I’ve called home throughout my life may be becoming less hospitable to a fundamental part of who I am.