How can you write this article and not even mention
(1) That hundreds of thousands of Palestinian-American Democrats have had relatives killed in the fighting? or
(2) That Israel relentlessly announces new settlements in the West Bank, oblivious to the sentiments of Americans?
Without a doubt, the sense that Israel simply ignores all pleas for restraint, including those from countries that supported Israel in the Gaza war, produces frenzied anger among people who are understandably appalled by what is being done with weapons they fund or provide.
I would think that the rise of the radical socialist left within the party would be enough for every rational individual to abandon the Democrats. For me, it started before October 7, with the party embracing censorship, DEI, science denialism and BLM. The rise of antisemitism, thinly disguised as antizionism, only confirmed that Jew-hatred never comes alone but as a component of an illiberal, totalitarian worldview. This does not mean that I like the GOP but right now, I see the radical left as a greater danger to Western civilization.
75,000 Gazans were killed by Israel after October 7th. That's not self defense. 10,000 people in the first month. 4000
Do you know how many people HAMAS has killed total since it's creation in 1987? 2000 people. That includes October 7th.
36 children were killed by Hamas. You have great sorrow for them. And outrage at their murder. 18,000 Palestinian children were killed in response. To which you expect the world to shrug.
You're trying to justify mass slaughter by saying Israel could have killed more? Saddam didn't kill all the Kurds. Does that mean he didn't slaughter them?
And yet, oddly, the death of liberalism in Israel provokes nothing like the same extent of anxiety. The judeofascists command around 10% support, and this will probably rise in the long term. Demographically, the religious element will expand to 25% within a generation. The Labour party, once the natural party of government, is practically extinct. Only 4% of Israelis identify as left wing.
Its all very well to say you can support Israel but oppose its government, but when there is no reasonable prospect of any alternative government in the foreseaable future, then any principled liberal is forced to make a choice. It seems like you have.
"If Israel moves away from annexation and toward regional integration, and works to restore its democracy, it would give its supporters abroad something worth defending again"
And if my grandma had balls she'd be my grandpa. I wish you and your fellow Liberal Zionists well, but I see no reason to believe you're going to win any elections in the foreseeable future. People here are talking up Eisenkot, who at least still claims to believe in a two state solution. But until he pledges to start evacuating all West Bank settlements immediately upon taking office, the basic precondition for a two state solution, there's no reason to take him seriously. He would also need to cooperate with the ICC in turning over the numerous wanted war criminals in the current government, of course.
If you want to be taken seriously, elect a government which will evacuate settlements, abide by international law, and recognize a Palestinian State TODAY, not at some indefinite time in the future when "conditions" are met. Anything short of that is worthless.
Thanks for reading, but I never said leave the party or vote on one issue. The piece says the GOP isn’t a home either, that the Massie vote wasn’t a rout, and that Shapiro and Emanuel are the lane worth fighting for.
I feel uncomfortable in a party that just nominated Darializa Avila Chevalier and endorsed Graham Platner en masse with his record already public. None of which is advice on how to vote. It’s just what the position costs now. I hope a new Israeli government changes things.
I am sorry that I misinterpreted your post. When you stated that you are politically homeless, I concluded that you want nothing to do with either party. I am also angry about the Platner debacle and do not think that Chevalier belongs in Congress, but I do not agree that Chevalier was nominated by the Party. She won the nomination in a specific district. Did the Democratic Party have the power to stop that?
Rahm Emanuel is right. Israel now has the ability to fend for itself economically and should no longer receive the massive economic assistance it has been receiving from the US. It should be like any other US ally.
"If Israel moves away from annexation and toward regional integration, and works to restore its democracy, it would give its supporters abroad something worth defending again."
I think this is really the critical point, and importantly, there is a clock ticking.
Once Israel loses support in the West, generally, it might take generations for that to change, even if Israel does everything right.
I'm aware of their view. But people can find an argument more persuasive and less persuasive. What's made the Anti-Zionist argument more persuasive are the actions of the Israeli State.
I don't think this was a defeat for liberal Zionists but a right sizing. I'd wager that most people who would be categorized as liberal or progress Zionists would have supported the Massie amendment. And the reason is clear: Protest against a Right Wing Israeli government who, in the words of Joaquin Castro wants to "ethnically cleanse" the Palestinian people. In Ro Khanna's interview with Haaretz this week, the same To Khanna who sponsored the bill, he made clear he's a Zionist who believes in the right of the Jewish people to self determination and a 2 state solution.
If liberal Zionism is defined as supporters of Israel who aren't willing to do more than give a strongly worded statement if Palestinians were being ethnically cleansed (which is the explicit intention of the Israeli Right Wing) or permanently disenfranchised (which is the policy preference of most Israeli Jews), then yes, this was a defeat for Liberal Zionism. But while that may be how Liberal Zionists in the US have operated until now, that will not continue. Apartheid is unacceptable to most American Jews, including most Zionist ones. And they aren't going to tolerate an Israel that has that as it's goal any longer.
That's fair — I agree the old unconditional posture is ending; that's my argument. But zeroing out all aid with no carve-out, binding on any future government, is blunter than "conditional Zionism," which is why Jeffries and 98 Democrats voted no. We differ on whether what comes next feels like a home.
I also don't think most Israeli Jews want Palestinians permanently disenfranchised. They want to live in security — and if the political conditions allow for it, I believe two states is still possible. We are, of course, a ways away.
On point two, I've asked myself the question: if the IDF tomorrow got the Egyptians to open the border and started marching Gazans across the border, would there be any protest? Not only do I think their would be no protest, I think you'd get a wave of respected intellectuals in Israel saying things like "This is a humanitarian intervention. Their quality of life will improve, etc."
It wouldn't even register as ethnic cleansing to most Israelis, the euphemisms would be so thick in the media.
That's what the Gaza War has shown Americans, because all this stuff is being talked about and planned openly right now and has been for almost 3 years. And the reaction in Israel is so muted.
Also 38% of Republicans say abortion should be legal in most or all cases and abortion is a state issue these days. Many red states are pro choice. Texas builds more clean energy than California. I don’t think centrist liberal American Jews will have so many issues with energy or that abortion is a big deal. The dumb populism, conspiracy theories, 2020 election denial etc sounds worse. But centrist Bari Weiss Manhattan Institute Rubio-style Republicans and centrist Democrat Ritchie Torres style Democrats are the best political homes. Both parties have many factions and one shouldn’t expect to agree with either party’s position on every issue.
I think there’s too much doomerism in the post. Once Eizenkot wins and the Iran war ends and aid is phased out the anti Israel movement will lose steam, and Republicans and centrist Democrats will continue to support arms sales. In any case Israel is developing its own arms industry. This anti Israel stuff is going to peak and decline the same way the defund the police and trans in women’s sports declined. Did you watch the Drop Site Ro Khanna interview? Eventually these people will realize the Hamastards are nuts and they’ll lose support. In a world with Israel phasing out US aid, no US direct involvement in Middle Eastern wars, and PM Eizenkot, the far left will be exposed for the nuts they are.
Clavicular having fun on his visit to Israel is great and is a harbinger of things to come.
For me, voting Republican was one of the hardest political decisions I've ever made. It's not who I ever thought I was, and it's not how I naturally see myself. But I reached a point where I felt I couldn't ignore what I was seeing.
In my eyes, bigotry toward Jews and the Jewish nation is the ultimate litmus test.
I don't feel like I walked away from the Democratic Party. I feel like the Democratic Party walked away from me.
As long as Republicans want to end a woman’s right to make her own medical decisions—something Israel affords all women—and repeal the 19th Amendment, Israel will have to do without my vote. It makes me sad as my brother lives there,,but I’ll send a check
Is opposition to the permanent disenfranchisement of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza or their ethnic cleansing from those lands bigotry towards Jews and the Jewish nation in your opinion? I'm curious.
It’s not about opposition to the Israeli governments policies in the WB and Gaza but about the influential DSA faction in the Democratic Party that’s pro-Hamas and opposed to the existence of Israel.
They’re loud. They’re are not even 50% of the Democratic Party yet, but they follow their Beloved Leader, Bernie—who isn’t even a Democrat. They aren’t winning many races outside of Very Blue districts
Timing. What has the 2 Republican Trump administrations done for the middle class in the US? As with the Tea Party after the 2007 meltdown, “Main Street” people are tired of being ignored in favor of the rich.
Bernie Sanders—not a Democrat but a democratic socialist—is their cult leader. He couldn’t even get his wish list passed in Vermont—because the numbers never added up. But facts and reality not as important as trying something different to the young. And Bernie assures them “the system “ is rigged against them, so they must take over “the system.”
Republican dark money funded The Tea Party, and Democratic dark money is funding the DSA. The DSA should split from the DNC, but they’re too chicken to leave the nest. That would test how popular their programs are.
Part of the answer is that the war and current coalition government give them plausible deniability. Their nature will become apparent to centrist Dems over the next few years, after some time of quiet with PM Eizenkot.
What is it about the war that made them influential? I submit it's the fact that the people conducting it stated very clearly that they're opposed to a 2 state solution and in favor of ethnically cleansing ("voluntarily transferring") the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip. That's the argument that Anti Zionists make to Democrats. The Nakba, according to them, wasn't a tragedy, it was a planned attempt to ethnically cleanse Palestine of its non Jewish population. And the reason for settlement in the West Bank and Gaza has been to finish the job.
When Israel could be said to be trying to get to a place where 2 States was possible, that argument was harder to make. Now it's not. Because for right wing Israelis and Jews, that's exactly how they see it. They just think it's a good thing. And they say so. And Americans are aware of that.
Is Eisenkot pro 2 States? Pro 1 State? Against the Settlements in the West Bank? No? Then he'll be a hard one to make a compelling argument to Americans that the Anti Zionists are wrong about Israel. He'll be better at making the case that their solution, 1 Democratic State for all, may not be necessary, but only if he makes the case for a 2 State solution. If not, he won't be effective.
—"What is it about the war that made them influential?"
The campaign to demonize Israel began decades before this war and was revitalized on campuses and in big cities on 10/7 when the DSA and the entire campus Left erupted in spasms of joy to a massacre of Jews. Here's a list of their grotesque responses which were issued before the bodies were even buried:
Had Netanyahu been replaced in 2021 by a Labor-Meretz coalition that froze settlements, pursued negotiations, and conducted the Gaza operation with maximal concern for proportionality (whatever that would mean in practice against a lunatic group of terrorists embedded in civilian infrastructure), would the DSA wing have moderated? Would the Columbia encampments not have happened at all? No professor would have justified the murder of Israelis because of "decolonization"? Would BDS not have become the litmus test in Democratic primaries? The answer to every one of these questions is obviously no, because the ideological framework that drives the anti-Israel position inside the Democratic Party is indifferent to Israeli behavior and responds to the category of Israel as such, as a settler-colonial ethnostate whose existence is the offense. “From the river to the sea” is not a critique of settlements or of Netanyahu; it is a demand for elimination.
—"When Israel could be said to be trying to get to a place where 2 States was possible, that argument was harder to make. Now it's not."
Gee, and what happened to change this? Could it have been a cross-border invasion and a brutal massacre of a thousand Israelis, all after Hamas had its own territory but instead of creating a functioning society turned it into a single giant military base, with hundreds of miles of underground tunnels and hospitals, schools and mosques used for missle launches?
To say Israel is faced with extreme double standards would be a massive understatement. Everyone's a critic of the Gaza War but no one can even offer a feasible alternative: what country would accept Hamas for a neighbor? What country wouldn't have fought to destroy them and rescue its hostages? How many IDF soldiers should have been sacrificed to Hamas' mines and booby traps?
And all this fetishizing of the extremists in the Israel govt or fantasizing about various one- or two-state solutions is just more pointless Israel bashing. First, no matter how deranged any Israeli politician is, they would be to the left of even the most liberal member of the PA, all of whom are committed to the violent erasure of the Zionist entity; and second, why debate imaginary solutions when the Palestinians have never ONCE accepted any peace deal? The 2-state solution is a long-dead Western fetish that demands Israelis have genocidal terrorists for neighbors because Westerners have no other way of conceiving the world except imagining everyone on earth wants what they want and wants to be just like them.
It is not up to Israelis or Western liberals to provide the Palestinians with dignity, respect, self determination or their own homeland. They have to do these things by and for themselves. They have leadership and agency and responsibility and are not passive victims. Their leaders have never once compromised or even ONCE in a century accepted the existence of a Jewish state. Until they learn how to moderate, compromise and care more about loving their children than their eternal jihad against the Jews, nothing will change.
You believe in the Right of Return of Palestinians to Jaffa and Ashkelon and Ashdod? It wasn't Palestinians who drove Jews out of Gaza, but Jews certainly drove some residents of the Gaza Strip today out of their homes in Ashdod and Jaffa.
The only places that today's Palestinians can be credibly accused of driving Jews out of is Hebron, Gush Etzion, and some of today's Jewish suburbs.
Nonsense. Arabs left due to threat of being killed by Arab nations that attacked Israel when they declared independence in 1948. The Arabs who didn't flee the invading Arab armies became Israeli citizens, as the 2 million Arab Israeli citizens can attest. Name ONE Arab nation that boasts of 2 million Jewish citizens. Name ONE Muslim nation that has 20% Jewish citizens as Israel has 20% Muslim citizens. Generational genocide going back hundreds of years and generational ethnic cleansing is the reason the Jewish population is so small throughout the world. Israel is more multi-cultural than any of the nations that surround it.
I'll add that I don't agree with the premise of the article or it's conclusions. I just want to show you what it means to be honest about what happened to the Palestinians.
And unlike the author of the paper I linked to, I don't think the atrocities that the Romans and Christians did to Jews or the potential atrocities that Palestinians like Hamas members want to do justifies the atrocities that Israeli Jews have done, are doing, or want to do. Security built on atrocity will never be secure.
That's a lie. I'd say you know it, but many Jews of a certain age don't. So. Here's a link to one of the most notorious incidents of the Nakba, notorious because it's so well documented and future Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was out in charge of carrying it out. And I picked this article because I want you to read this from a person who thinks that these actions were good things.
Still waiting for you to identify the Arab and Muslim nations with as sizable a Jewish population as the Muslim population in Israel. When you get back to me with this info, I'll be willing to waste my time on your BS "news" sources.
The Democratic Party is hijacked by the antizionist hate movement.
Describing antizionists as “pro-Palestinian” is one of the most persistent and damaging errors in contemporary discourse.
It suggests that antizionism is motivated by concern for Palestinian wellbeing, and implies that opposing antizionists is equivalent to opposing Palestinians.
Both claims are false.
Antizionism is responsible for the forever war that has seen countless Palestinians killed. The IRGC and its proxies continue to use civilians as human shields in the hope that Israel will suffer. Tens of thousands of Palestinians were knowingly sacrificed by an antizionist agenda. This is not “pro-Palestinian.” Credit to: https://fornormalpeople.substack.com/
Palestinians should be treated with dignity and respect. It's not okay for them to be denied their right to self determination. It's not okay for the West Bank to be carved up and the land annexed to Israel. It's not okay for the plan to be that Palestinians either are permanently disenfranchised or ethnically cleansed.
The question is, does Zionism, as an ideology, necessitate what we've seen. Is the way things were are inevitably supposed to go? Anti Zionists AND Right Wing Zionists say yes. Liberal and progressive Zionists say no.
The Democratic Party hasn't been hijacked. Americans don't support the disenfranchisement of Palestinians and the current Israeli government and society does. So Democrats are going to be more open to Anti Zionist arguments and Politicians. If Israel changes politically, support for anti Zionism will fall.
The Palestinians have rejected their own state and self determination since The League of Nations.
And they were handed self determination in Gaza by The Oslo Accords, and they elected Hamas.
They want Israel to disappear, which isn’t going to happen. What’s their Plan B? Their violence hasn’t worked—why haven’t they tried non-violence?
The Palestinians receive billions annually under the terms of The Oslo Accords. What have they done with the money to improve the life of Palestinians? Why would they change anything and lose those billions?
This isn't true. Since 1990, Palestinians have officially accepted partition. They haven't accepted the borders Israel has offered. But they've offered their own maps with their own conditions that Israel has rejected. One of the mistakes many people have made is conflating the 2.
Many Palestinians have chosen nonviolence. They're are peaceful nonviolent demonstrations happening all the time. Does Israel care? No. Does it change Israeli policy no. Violence hasn't either, but again. The fact that nonviolent resistance by Palestinians doesn't even register outside of Palestinian Arab communities points to the fact that this is more often used as an excuse. The Palestinian Authority has rejected violence completely, despite factions within the PLO and organizations like HAMAS pressuring them not to. What have they gained?
Palestinians have built roads, houses, a government structure since Oslo. But there's a limit to how much a community under occupation can grow, especially when their occupiers are literally taking the land from under their feet. How much foreign investment can a company get if it's population is subject to arbitrary checkpoints and military raids? I'll add that Israel has control of the money from Oslo and starts and starts it when it wants. Israel hasn't released the Palestinian Authorities revenue, which includes Oslo money, for a year now. How do you build an economy when your occupier turns your economy on and off at will?
Frankly so many of your questions presume good will on the part of Israel that hasn't existed in 20 years. If Israel recommits itself to a 2 State solution and engaging with the Palestinian Authority it will find that their were Palestinian partners for peace all along. But they have to want that first, and they don't right.
In 1990, Palestinians chose to accept a 1986 (1988?)offer, that had expired. They’ve admitted they should have accepted the UN offer of 1947. Historically, the Palestinians accept offers only after they are no longer available, per the internationally-mediated offer deadlines.
No, Israel hasn’t exhibited good will toward the Palestinians since the suicide car bombings in the 2 Infitadas, the multiple rocket attacks from Gaza since 2006, and and the stabbing of sleeping settler children. No doubt, you believe the Palestinian violence is justified. But the election and continued support of Hamas in Gaza, and the support for Hezbollah’s violent attacks in the North tangibly demonstrate too many Palestinians do not want non-violence.
Suggest you read the Palestinian-conducted survey of Palestinians done by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey in Ramallah for 2025-2026 accurate and factual information on Palestinian attitudes.
"I know this be super difficult to hear, but antizionism does not care who leads Israel—whether Bibi Netanyahu, Yair Golan, or David Ben-Gurion. It is a deep-seated hostility that casts Israel as a uniquely evil state, unworthy of existence. Credit to: https://nayalekht.substack.com/
How can you write this article and not even mention
(1) That hundreds of thousands of Palestinian-American Democrats have had relatives killed in the fighting? or
(2) That Israel relentlessly announces new settlements in the West Bank, oblivious to the sentiments of Americans?
Without a doubt, the sense that Israel simply ignores all pleas for restraint, including those from countries that supported Israel in the Gaza war, produces frenzied anger among people who are understandably appalled by what is being done with weapons they fund or provide.
I would think that the rise of the radical socialist left within the party would be enough for every rational individual to abandon the Democrats. For me, it started before October 7, with the party embracing censorship, DEI, science denialism and BLM. The rise of antisemitism, thinly disguised as antizionism, only confirmed that Jew-hatred never comes alone but as a component of an illiberal, totalitarian worldview. This does not mean that I like the GOP but right now, I see the radical left as a greater danger to Western civilization.
75,000 Gazans were killed by Israel after October 7th. That's not self defense. 10,000 people in the first month. 4000
Do you know how many people HAMAS has killed total since it's creation in 1987? 2000 people. That includes October 7th.
36 children were killed by Hamas. You have great sorrow for them. And outrage at their murder. 18,000 Palestinian children were killed in response. To which you expect the world to shrug.
You're trying to justify mass slaughter by saying Israel could have killed more? Saddam didn't kill all the Kurds. Does that mean he didn't slaughter them?
There is no such thing as a liberal Zionist, it's like saying your an ethical serial killer
And yet, oddly, the death of liberalism in Israel provokes nothing like the same extent of anxiety. The judeofascists command around 10% support, and this will probably rise in the long term. Demographically, the religious element will expand to 25% within a generation. The Labour party, once the natural party of government, is practically extinct. Only 4% of Israelis identify as left wing.
Its all very well to say you can support Israel but oppose its government, but when there is no reasonable prospect of any alternative government in the foreseaable future, then any principled liberal is forced to make a choice. It seems like you have.
"If Israel moves away from annexation and toward regional integration, and works to restore its democracy, it would give its supporters abroad something worth defending again"
And if my grandma had balls she'd be my grandpa. I wish you and your fellow Liberal Zionists well, but I see no reason to believe you're going to win any elections in the foreseeable future. People here are talking up Eisenkot, who at least still claims to believe in a two state solution. But until he pledges to start evacuating all West Bank settlements immediately upon taking office, the basic precondition for a two state solution, there's no reason to take him seriously. He would also need to cooperate with the ICC in turning over the numerous wanted war criminals in the current government, of course.
If you want to be taken seriously, elect a government which will evacuate settlements, abide by international law, and recognize a Palestinian State TODAY, not at some indefinite time in the future when "conditions" are met. Anything short of that is worthless.
Eli, some of what you wrote makes sense, but overall, I profoundly disagree that we are politically homeless. And it is extremely dangerous to be a one issue voter. We need to work within the Democratic Party and not abandon it if we wish to have any say in policy matters. Melanie Nathan states it perfectly in one of her posts: https://jwori.com/2026/05/18/the-security-nexus-why-jewish-republicans-and-democrats-must-unite-and-vote-democratic/
Thanks for reading, but I never said leave the party or vote on one issue. The piece says the GOP isn’t a home either, that the Massie vote wasn’t a rout, and that Shapiro and Emanuel are the lane worth fighting for.
I feel uncomfortable in a party that just nominated Darializa Avila Chevalier and endorsed Graham Platner en masse with his record already public. None of which is advice on how to vote. It’s just what the position costs now. I hope a new Israeli government changes things.
I am sorry that I misinterpreted your post. When you stated that you are politically homeless, I concluded that you want nothing to do with either party. I am also angry about the Platner debacle and do not think that Chevalier belongs in Congress, but I do not agree that Chevalier was nominated by the Party. She won the nomination in a specific district. Did the Democratic Party have the power to stop that?
It’s not only “many American Jews”
who are now politically homeless. It’s “many Americans”……
Rahm Emanuel is right. Israel now has the ability to fend for itself economically and should no longer receive the massive economic assistance it has been receiving from the US. It should be like any other US ally.
"If Israel moves away from annexation and toward regional integration, and works to restore its democracy, it would give its supporters abroad something worth defending again."
I think this is really the critical point, and importantly, there is a clock ticking.
Once Israel loses support in the West, generally, it might take generations for that to change, even if Israel does everything right.
The window is closing, and closing fast.
I'm aware of their view. But people can find an argument more persuasive and less persuasive. What's made the Anti-Zionist argument more persuasive are the actions of the Israeli State.
I don't think this was a defeat for liberal Zionists but a right sizing. I'd wager that most people who would be categorized as liberal or progress Zionists would have supported the Massie amendment. And the reason is clear: Protest against a Right Wing Israeli government who, in the words of Joaquin Castro wants to "ethnically cleanse" the Palestinian people. In Ro Khanna's interview with Haaretz this week, the same To Khanna who sponsored the bill, he made clear he's a Zionist who believes in the right of the Jewish people to self determination and a 2 state solution.
If liberal Zionism is defined as supporters of Israel who aren't willing to do more than give a strongly worded statement if Palestinians were being ethnically cleansed (which is the explicit intention of the Israeli Right Wing) or permanently disenfranchised (which is the policy preference of most Israeli Jews), then yes, this was a defeat for Liberal Zionism. But while that may be how Liberal Zionists in the US have operated until now, that will not continue. Apartheid is unacceptable to most American Jews, including most Zionist ones. And they aren't going to tolerate an Israel that has that as it's goal any longer.
Very well stated. Agree wholeheartedly.
That's fair — I agree the old unconditional posture is ending; that's my argument. But zeroing out all aid with no carve-out, binding on any future government, is blunter than "conditional Zionism," which is why Jeffries and 98 Democrats voted no. We differ on whether what comes next feels like a home.
I also don't think most Israeli Jews want Palestinians permanently disenfranchised. They want to live in security — and if the political conditions allow for it, I believe two states is still possible. We are, of course, a ways away.
I'll give you point one.
On point two, I've asked myself the question: if the IDF tomorrow got the Egyptians to open the border and started marching Gazans across the border, would there be any protest? Not only do I think their would be no protest, I think you'd get a wave of respected intellectuals in Israel saying things like "This is a humanitarian intervention. Their quality of life will improve, etc."
It wouldn't even register as ethnic cleansing to most Israelis, the euphemisms would be so thick in the media.
That's what the Gaza War has shown Americans, because all this stuff is being talked about and planned openly right now and has been for almost 3 years. And the reaction in Israel is so muted.
Also 38% of Republicans say abortion should be legal in most or all cases and abortion is a state issue these days. Many red states are pro choice. Texas builds more clean energy than California. I don’t think centrist liberal American Jews will have so many issues with energy or that abortion is a big deal. The dumb populism, conspiracy theories, 2020 election denial etc sounds worse. But centrist Bari Weiss Manhattan Institute Rubio-style Republicans and centrist Democrat Ritchie Torres style Democrats are the best political homes. Both parties have many factions and one shouldn’t expect to agree with either party’s position on every issue.
“Centrist” Bari Weiss? That word does not apply to her at all.
I think there’s too much doomerism in the post. Once Eizenkot wins and the Iran war ends and aid is phased out the anti Israel movement will lose steam, and Republicans and centrist Democrats will continue to support arms sales. In any case Israel is developing its own arms industry. This anti Israel stuff is going to peak and decline the same way the defund the police and trans in women’s sports declined. Did you watch the Drop Site Ro Khanna interview? Eventually these people will realize the Hamastards are nuts and they’ll lose support. In a world with Israel phasing out US aid, no US direct involvement in Middle Eastern wars, and PM Eizenkot, the far left will be exposed for the nuts they are.
Clavicular having fun on his visit to Israel is great and is a harbinger of things to come.
For me, voting Republican was one of the hardest political decisions I've ever made. It's not who I ever thought I was, and it's not how I naturally see myself. But I reached a point where I felt I couldn't ignore what I was seeing.
In my eyes, bigotry toward Jews and the Jewish nation is the ultimate litmus test.
I don't feel like I walked away from the Democratic Party. I feel like the Democratic Party walked away from me.
As long as Republicans want to end a woman’s right to make her own medical decisions—something Israel affords all women—and repeal the 19th Amendment, Israel will have to do without my vote. It makes me sad as my brother lives there,,but I’ll send a check
Is opposition to the permanent disenfranchisement of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza or their ethnic cleansing from those lands bigotry towards Jews and the Jewish nation in your opinion? I'm curious.
It’s not about opposition to the Israeli governments policies in the WB and Gaza but about the influential DSA faction in the Democratic Party that’s pro-Hamas and opposed to the existence of Israel.
Why are they influential?
They’re loud. They’re are not even 50% of the Democratic Party yet, but they follow their Beloved Leader, Bernie—who isn’t even a Democrat. They aren’t winning many races outside of Very Blue districts
They were loud before. But now they're influential. Why?
Timing. What has the 2 Republican Trump administrations done for the middle class in the US? As with the Tea Party after the 2007 meltdown, “Main Street” people are tired of being ignored in favor of the rich.
Bernie Sanders—not a Democrat but a democratic socialist—is their cult leader. He couldn’t even get his wish list passed in Vermont—because the numbers never added up. But facts and reality not as important as trying something different to the young. And Bernie assures them “the system “ is rigged against them, so they must take over “the system.”
Republican dark money funded The Tea Party, and Democratic dark money is funding the DSA. The DSA should split from the DNC, but they’re too chicken to leave the nest. That would test how popular their programs are.
Part of the answer is that the war and current coalition government give them plausible deniability. Their nature will become apparent to centrist Dems over the next few years, after some time of quiet with PM Eizenkot.
What is it about the war that made them influential? I submit it's the fact that the people conducting it stated very clearly that they're opposed to a 2 state solution and in favor of ethnically cleansing ("voluntarily transferring") the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip. That's the argument that Anti Zionists make to Democrats. The Nakba, according to them, wasn't a tragedy, it was a planned attempt to ethnically cleanse Palestine of its non Jewish population. And the reason for settlement in the West Bank and Gaza has been to finish the job.
When Israel could be said to be trying to get to a place where 2 States was possible, that argument was harder to make. Now it's not. Because for right wing Israelis and Jews, that's exactly how they see it. They just think it's a good thing. And they say so. And Americans are aware of that.
Is Eisenkot pro 2 States? Pro 1 State? Against the Settlements in the West Bank? No? Then he'll be a hard one to make a compelling argument to Americans that the Anti Zionists are wrong about Israel. He'll be better at making the case that their solution, 1 Democratic State for all, may not be necessary, but only if he makes the case for a 2 State solution. If not, he won't be effective.
—"What is it about the war that made them influential?"
The campaign to demonize Israel began decades before this war and was revitalized on campuses and in big cities on 10/7 when the DSA and the entire campus Left erupted in spasms of joy to a massacre of Jews. Here's a list of their grotesque responses which were issued before the bodies were even buried:
https://thegoldenpill.substack.com/p/the-anatomy-of-entryism-how-the-captured?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3373682&post_id=206905282&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=2mpwb&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Had Netanyahu been replaced in 2021 by a Labor-Meretz coalition that froze settlements, pursued negotiations, and conducted the Gaza operation with maximal concern for proportionality (whatever that would mean in practice against a lunatic group of terrorists embedded in civilian infrastructure), would the DSA wing have moderated? Would the Columbia encampments not have happened at all? No professor would have justified the murder of Israelis because of "decolonization"? Would BDS not have become the litmus test in Democratic primaries? The answer to every one of these questions is obviously no, because the ideological framework that drives the anti-Israel position inside the Democratic Party is indifferent to Israeli behavior and responds to the category of Israel as such, as a settler-colonial ethnostate whose existence is the offense. “From the river to the sea” is not a critique of settlements or of Netanyahu; it is a demand for elimination.
—"When Israel could be said to be trying to get to a place where 2 States was possible, that argument was harder to make. Now it's not."
Gee, and what happened to change this? Could it have been a cross-border invasion and a brutal massacre of a thousand Israelis, all after Hamas had its own territory but instead of creating a functioning society turned it into a single giant military base, with hundreds of miles of underground tunnels and hospitals, schools and mosques used for missle launches?
To say Israel is faced with extreme double standards would be a massive understatement. Everyone's a critic of the Gaza War but no one can even offer a feasible alternative: what country would accept Hamas for a neighbor? What country wouldn't have fought to destroy them and rescue its hostages? How many IDF soldiers should have been sacrificed to Hamas' mines and booby traps?
And all this fetishizing of the extremists in the Israel govt or fantasizing about various one- or two-state solutions is just more pointless Israel bashing. First, no matter how deranged any Israeli politician is, they would be to the left of even the most liberal member of the PA, all of whom are committed to the violent erasure of the Zionist entity; and second, why debate imaginary solutions when the Palestinians have never ONCE accepted any peace deal? The 2-state solution is a long-dead Western fetish that demands Israelis have genocidal terrorists for neighbors because Westerners have no other way of conceiving the world except imagining everyone on earth wants what they want and wants to be just like them.
It is not up to Israelis or Western liberals to provide the Palestinians with dignity, respect, self determination or their own homeland. They have to do these things by and for themselves. They have leadership and agency and responsibility and are not passive victims. Their leaders have never once compromised or even ONCE in a century accepted the existence of a Jewish state. Until they learn how to moderate, compromise and care more about loving their children than their eternal jihad against the Jews, nothing will change.
You have it backwards. It is Jews who have been ethnically cleansed from Gaza and from much of the West Bank.
You believe in the Right of Return of Palestinians to Jaffa and Ashkelon and Ashdod? It wasn't Palestinians who drove Jews out of Gaza, but Jews certainly drove some residents of the Gaza Strip today out of their homes in Ashdod and Jaffa.
The only places that today's Palestinians can be credibly accused of driving Jews out of is Hebron, Gush Etzion, and some of today's Jewish suburbs.
Nonsense. Arabs left due to threat of being killed by Arab nations that attacked Israel when they declared independence in 1948. The Arabs who didn't flee the invading Arab armies became Israeli citizens, as the 2 million Arab Israeli citizens can attest. Name ONE Arab nation that boasts of 2 million Jewish citizens. Name ONE Muslim nation that has 20% Jewish citizens as Israel has 20% Muslim citizens. Generational genocide going back hundreds of years and generational ethnic cleansing is the reason the Jewish population is so small throughout the world. Israel is more multi-cultural than any of the nations that surround it.
I'll add that I don't agree with the premise of the article or it's conclusions. I just want to show you what it means to be honest about what happened to the Palestinians.
And unlike the author of the paper I linked to, I don't think the atrocities that the Romans and Christians did to Jews or the potential atrocities that Palestinians like Hamas members want to do justifies the atrocities that Israeli Jews have done, are doing, or want to do. Security built on atrocity will never be secure.
That's a lie. I'd say you know it, but many Jews of a certain age don't. So. Here's a link to one of the most notorious incidents of the Nakba, notorious because it's so well documented and future Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was out in charge of carrying it out. And I picked this article because I want you to read this from a person who thinks that these actions were good things.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-jan-26-oe-morris26-story.html
Still waiting for you to identify the Arab and Muslim nations with as sizable a Jewish population as the Muslim population in Israel. When you get back to me with this info, I'll be willing to waste my time on your BS "news" sources.
Of Jerusalem.
The Democratic Party is hijacked by the antizionist hate movement.
Describing antizionists as “pro-Palestinian” is one of the most persistent and damaging errors in contemporary discourse.
It suggests that antizionism is motivated by concern for Palestinian wellbeing, and implies that opposing antizionists is equivalent to opposing Palestinians.
Both claims are false.
Antizionism is responsible for the forever war that has seen countless Palestinians killed. The IRGC and its proxies continue to use civilians as human shields in the hope that Israel will suffer. Tens of thousands of Palestinians were knowingly sacrificed by an antizionist agenda. This is not “pro-Palestinian.” Credit to: https://fornormalpeople.substack.com/
Palestinians should be treated with dignity and respect. It's not okay for them to be denied their right to self determination. It's not okay for the West Bank to be carved up and the land annexed to Israel. It's not okay for the plan to be that Palestinians either are permanently disenfranchised or ethnically cleansed.
The question is, does Zionism, as an ideology, necessitate what we've seen. Is the way things were are inevitably supposed to go? Anti Zionists AND Right Wing Zionists say yes. Liberal and progressive Zionists say no.
The Democratic Party hasn't been hijacked. Americans don't support the disenfranchisement of Palestinians and the current Israeli government and society does. So Democrats are going to be more open to Anti Zionist arguments and Politicians. If Israel changes politically, support for anti Zionism will fall.
The Palestinians have rejected their own state and self determination since The League of Nations.
And they were handed self determination in Gaza by The Oslo Accords, and they elected Hamas.
They want Israel to disappear, which isn’t going to happen. What’s their Plan B? Their violence hasn’t worked—why haven’t they tried non-violence?
The Palestinians receive billions annually under the terms of The Oslo Accords. What have they done with the money to improve the life of Palestinians? Why would they change anything and lose those billions?
This isn't true. Since 1990, Palestinians have officially accepted partition. They haven't accepted the borders Israel has offered. But they've offered their own maps with their own conditions that Israel has rejected. One of the mistakes many people have made is conflating the 2.
Many Palestinians have chosen nonviolence. They're are peaceful nonviolent demonstrations happening all the time. Does Israel care? No. Does it change Israeli policy no. Violence hasn't either, but again. The fact that nonviolent resistance by Palestinians doesn't even register outside of Palestinian Arab communities points to the fact that this is more often used as an excuse. The Palestinian Authority has rejected violence completely, despite factions within the PLO and organizations like HAMAS pressuring them not to. What have they gained?
Palestinians have built roads, houses, a government structure since Oslo. But there's a limit to how much a community under occupation can grow, especially when their occupiers are literally taking the land from under their feet. How much foreign investment can a company get if it's population is subject to arbitrary checkpoints and military raids? I'll add that Israel has control of the money from Oslo and starts and starts it when it wants. Israel hasn't released the Palestinian Authorities revenue, which includes Oslo money, for a year now. How do you build an economy when your occupier turns your economy on and off at will?
Frankly so many of your questions presume good will on the part of Israel that hasn't existed in 20 years. If Israel recommits itself to a 2 State solution and engaging with the Palestinian Authority it will find that their were Palestinian partners for peace all along. But they have to want that first, and they don't right.
In 1990, Palestinians chose to accept a 1986 (1988?)offer, that had expired. They’ve admitted they should have accepted the UN offer of 1947. Historically, the Palestinians accept offers only after they are no longer available, per the internationally-mediated offer deadlines.
No, Israel hasn’t exhibited good will toward the Palestinians since the suicide car bombings in the 2 Infitadas, the multiple rocket attacks from Gaza since 2006, and and the stabbing of sleeping settler children. No doubt, you believe the Palestinian violence is justified. But the election and continued support of Hamas in Gaza, and the support for Hezbollah’s violent attacks in the North tangibly demonstrate too many Palestinians do not want non-violence.
Suggest you read the Palestinian-conducted survey of Palestinians done by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey in Ramallah for 2025-2026 accurate and factual information on Palestinian attitudes.
"I know this be super difficult to hear, but antizionism does not care who leads Israel—whether Bibi Netanyahu, Yair Golan, or David Ben-Gurion. It is a deep-seated hostility that casts Israel as a uniquely evil state, unworthy of existence. Credit to: https://nayalekht.substack.com/