The Party’s Over
A call for Democrats to abandon Israel leaves me shaken but not shocked.
Ben Rhodes, who served as a deputy national security adviser under President Obama, insists that “it is past time for Democrats to stop supporting this Israeli government.” His Opinion piece in The New York Times, “This Is The Story Of How The Democrats Blew It On Gaza,” encapsulates the views of a growing number of Democrats who appear to put the full blame of the Gaza war on Israel.
“By letting go of an outdated approach,” he advises, “Democrats can reclaim their values, foster a bigger and more stable coalition and start building the world they want, rather than defending the indefensible.”
Israel, in other words, has become indefensible, apparently not part of the world Democrats want.
Reading this writing on the wall, no doubt many American Jews like me will feel increasingly trapped between the impossible choice of an administration in Washington actively dismantling the pillars of democracy and a Democratic party moving away from support for the only democracy in the Middle East, the world’s only Jewish state.
Rhodes has deep experience in foreign affairs, but his essay is strikingly one-sided. It makes no reference to decades of Palestinian pledges to destroy the Jewish state, the countless terror attacks against Israeli citizens, and Palestinian leaders’ consistent refusal of Israel’s many peace proposals. (No alternative plans have been offered because the Palestinians seek to remove the Jewish state, not live beside it.)
He asserts that the “instinct” among some Democrats to “emphasize a story of Palestinian terrorism and rejection of peace” is “part of the problem.”
For Rhodes, morality is on the side of the Palestinians.
“If you believe a Palestinian child is equal in dignity and worth to an Israeli or American child, it is no longer possible to support this Israeli government while hiding behind platitudes of peace,” he writes. There is no mention of the fact that Hamas launched and waged a brutal war to annihilate Israel by using its own civilian population as canon fodder. No acknowledgment that Israel was forced to confront an immoral enemy that hid in tunnels under mosques, hospitals and schools. So much for Hamas believing in the “dignity and worth” of the children in its charge. Israel sought to minimize civilian casualties by advance warnings; Hamas fighters chose to praise their citizens as martyrs rather than provide them shelters.
Yet the fact remains that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu bears much of the blame for losing vital support from Democrats as he has cast his fate with Donald Trump and the Republican party. Bipartisanship was the key to Israel’s strong relationship with Washington since statehood in 1948. Jerusalem took great pride in the robust support of both parties. But that’s gone now, and over the last two years of war, more Americans now favor the Palestinians over Israel. Still, Netanyahu remains politically beholden to two radical, hard-right members of his coalition, Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. Their racist and expansionist views helped lead Rhodes to refer to Israel’s “policy of vengeance” and to conclude that “it is not healthy” for the Democratic party “to be this out of step with its own voters and stated beliefs.”
His solution includes refusing military assistance to Israel’s government and supporting the work of the International Criminal Court, which has issued arrest warrants against Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Rhodes acknowledges that some will say such positions “endanger Israel and the Jewish diaspora. But that only holds if you believe that the current course will keep Israel and the Jewish diaspora safe.”
Rhodes believes “the opposite is true.”
I strongly disagree with his skewed takedown of Israel. But his conclusion – that Israel needs to be punished by the West before positive change can come to the Middle East – raises a fair question and challenge to all who are committed to both a democratic and secure Jewish state: What is Israel’s alternative to its current course?