What we learnt from the DNC

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Despite the doom mongering from some, the DNC showed that many within the Democratic party remain, at least for now, well disposed towards Israel and its right to defend itself. However, a growing minority, the squad and fellow travellers, are increasingly open with their antizionism. Whether a Harris administration would be a true friend to Israel remains an open question. It’s also noticeable that there was precious little direct reference to Israel at the DNC. Biden didn’t use the word once in his speech, perhaps worried its use might trigger those chanting ‘Genocide Joe’ outside of the convention, whose votes, after all, the Democrats think they need to beat Trump. Biden also felt the need to show allyship with the demonstrators, surprising many by saying that ‘they have a point’. Some like Alan Dershowitz have commented that if he really feels that they have a point in calling Israel’s defensive war a genocide, and rallying to make the river to the sea free of Jews, then the Democrats are already lost. Well, what a difference 30 years makes. In his 1994 campaign Bill Clinton clearly and precisely called out the hard left in his party, in his famous Sister Souljah moment, repudiating calls for black on white violence. Today’s Democratic Party is much more equivocal it would seem in calling out calls within its ranks for violence towards Jews in their state.

What has changed in those 30 years can be connected to wider political changes. The trend in liberal thought since the end of the second world war has been against nationalism, and in favour of international cooperation and global governance. Increasingly on the left, such sentiments are mixed in with postcolonial guilt and the idea that instances of oppression of non-white communities across the world are interconnected.  The nation state is no longer seen as a good thing, but a problem waiting to be solved. This change in mindset has taken place slowly, over decades. In the 80s and 90s, Reagan, Bush 41 and Clinton could still stand up for the idea of the nation. For Reagan, America was a shining city on the hill, a nation leading the world with its verve and brilliance, blessed by God. Clinton in 1996 could still talk about the American Dream, strengthening the family and America’s unique leadership in the fight for freedom and peace throughout the world. Today, in 2024, a significant part of the Democratic Party thinks the very idea of the nation state suspect, and the idea that America is a shining light to others as almost laughable. Is it any wonder then that the Democrats can’t make sense of Israel, and the idea of Jewish national self-determination. A minority at least have bought in to the old trope, heard in the West since the French revolution, that Jews can be free citizens with equal rights only if they give up their ‘peculiarities’. They mustn’t carry on being Jews, with a distinct identity, culture, faith and history, but rather must allow themselves to be swallowed up into the great international mass of humanity. When they don’t, all the problems of humanity can be laid at the door of the stubborn, wilful Jew who refuses to blend in. It’s this same thinking that lies at the heart of the arguments from the hard left that there can be no justice for anyone without justice for the Palestinian people’ and which explains to some extent the confluence for some between pro-Palestinian activism and activism for LGBTQ rights, climate justice and so on. This is why demonstrators outside the DNC could call for the destruction of Israel as the nation state of the Jews, and why Biden could see their point. That part of the Democrat base views the very idea of the nation state as deeply problematic. When they think of the border, they see walls and fences as an expression of America’s exploitation and oppression of the rest of the world. They want the border to come down not just between the US and Mexico but everywhere, so the world can become, as Marx hoped for, a stateless international society. Of course, there’s no place for a Jewish state in this worldview, nor indeed in truth any space for Jews unless they repudiate their identity and history. This is still only a minority perspective amongst the Democrats, but it’s a perspective that is increasingly tolerated. There will be no Democrat Sister Souljah moment with regards to Israel and Jewish national self-determination. What seems more likely is that over time, whether long or short, the views of those outside the DNC will increasingly come to the fore inside the convention centre.