The other week, all but seven Democratic Senators voted against the sale of bombs and military bulldozers to Israel. The vote is already being described by pundits as a watershed moment, and rightfully so: just two years ago, similar efforts to penalize the Jewish state gathered about half the support. And while the sale was ultimately approved by the Republican majority, the political drama it generated teaches us three key lessons.
The first, and most simple, is this: when it comes to us Jews, the Democrat Party is lost. Gone. Done. Cooked. Kaput. There’s no use pointing at a few righteous gentiles like Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman or New York Congressman Ritchie Torress – sane and sensible lawmakers – as a sign of hope. They are and shall remain lone and muted voices in a party too busy shouting lunatic progressive slogans, from “Free Palestine” to “Open the Borders and Let Anyone Who Wants to Come In Because an American Citizenship is a Basic Human Right.”
You may point out that American Jews have long considered the Democrat Party their political home. True. Many of us had once comfortably lived in Norwich or York or Winchester or London before the 1290 Edict of Expulsion let us know, as the Democrats are letting us know now, that we’re no longer welcome.
You may also gripe about anti-Jewish sentiments being a bipartisan plague. They are not, not by a long shot. True, the Republicans, too, have their share of loonies accusing Israel of all the world’s evils (See under: Carlson, Tucker), but they are routinely and strongly denounced by virtually all Republican Senators and, importantly, by the President himself. There’s simply no balance of bigotry on both sides of the political aisle, a fact that is exceedingly hard for many American Jewish voters, who are tempted to see Trump as the source of all malice, to grasp.
The second lesson we can learn from the vitiating vote becomes evident just by looking at the surnames of the voters. Michael Bennet, Jon Ossoff, Bernie Sanders, Ron Wyden, Adam Schiff, Brian Schatz, Elissa Slotkin: Of the ten Jewish Democrats currently serving in the Senate, seven giddily and uncomplicatedly turned on Israel in the midst of its war for survival.
And here’s the thing: not a single one of the “Self-Hating Seven” is anyone’s idea of a fire-breathing radical outsider, not even Sanders, the grinning octogenarian from Vermont. These leaders have all spent years courting and counting on the support of the Jewish community, keynoting Federation events and presenting themselves as defenders of the faith against the Great Orange Threat, that notorious “antisemite” Donald Trump.
Some of us have spent years pointing out that it was Trump and the Republicans who were consistently and gallantly standing up for Jewish values and interests, fighting our haters everywhere from the Straits of Hormuz to Columbia University, but the American Jewish establishment, with very few exceptions, continued to act like the Democrats were the only game in town. They’ve now received the return on their investment, allowing us all to see, as if there was any doubt, that when it comes to protecting actual Jews anywhere, the American Jewish communal establishment is a broken down, inept disaster.
Finally, there’s lesson number three, the hardest one, perhaps, to learn. It’s simply this: the so-called American military aid to Israel is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea, and it must be stopped. When Jake Siegel and myself made this argument in Tablet Magazine in July of 2023, we were treated to a symphony of condemnations. Then came October 7 and made our argument plain for all to see. Because the American “military aid” is not really military aid (it’s actually a lucrative backdoor subsidy to US arms makers, as every penny of it remains stateside), and because Israel is no longer the weak, dependent country it was in the, say, 1980s, American aid now plays a very different role than intended. Rather than help out Israel, a thriving nation capable of producing and selling many innovative military technologies in high demand all over the world, it uses the Jewish state as a prop in a domestic American political drama, allowing bad faith actors to argue, erroneously, that the US government is denying its taxpayers crucial services like healthcare and education simply to support Israel’s wanton military adventures overseas.
Take the “aid” away, and what you’ll have is a much more ordinary, and much more beneficial relationship, one in which both nations are free to purchase whatever products and technologies they need on the free market, without strings, attachments, or accusations.
The Democrats who voted no didn’t do so because they possess some intricate understanding of munitions, warfare, or even diplomacy. They voted the way they did because they see everything and everyone as an extension of their own domestic appetite for political power, and have come to believe that Israel equals Republican, white supremacist, oppressive, and religious, whereas the “Palestinians” are perpetually oppressed people of colour who deserve all the affirmative action they can get.
It’s a silly and juvenile worldview. And as those of us who are parents know, you can’t argue with a juvenile, mid-temper tantrum. All you can do is walk away, close the door behind you, and continue to make the sort of reality-based decisions expected of responsible adults.
Liel Leibovitz is Editor at Large at Tablet Magazine and a Senior Fellow at Hudson Institute
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