No issue more accurately reflects the relentlessly leftward direction of the Democratic Party than the nation of Israel. Democrats have evolved from bipartisan supporters of the Jewish state for decades to open antagonists seeking to weaken, if not destroy, it. In 2016, exactly zero Democrats in the US House of Representatives voted against funding for the state of Israel. In 2024, 37 Democrats voted to cut off aid. But this week, a whopping 103 House Democrats voted to terminate all economic and military aid to our longtime ally in the Middle East, while another ten brave souls voted present.
The proposed amendment to a State Department spending bill would have eliminated $3.3 billion in funding, but due to strong Republican support for Israel, it failed 314-104. However, with more than half of their members going on record as anti-Israel, the damage to the Democratic Party’s brand had already been done.
Blaming the Victims
As syndicated columnist Cal Thomas, longtime supporter of the Jewish state, told LNN, “Israel has been under attack and targeted for elimination since its reestablishment in its ancient land in 1948. The left accuses Israel of genocide in Gaza when it is Hamas that is guilty of genocide in Gaza and Israel.” Indeed, the ugly irony is that leftists’ militant opposition to Israel ramped up to epic proportions after 1,195 innocent souls were slaughtered and dozens more were abducted by Hamas in 2023. They acted as if the Israelis had it coming to them and used it as an excuse to unleash antisemitic verbal venom on a broad scale.
The latest example is New York City socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) saying he intends to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his anticipated visit the U.N. this fall. ” I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in The Hague,” Mamdani said. “He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court … because of what his actions have wrought over these past many years.”
Have the deconstructionists on the left even listened to or cared the least bit about the hostages’ horrifying stories of torture, rape, and degradation by Hamas terrorists? How was Israel supposed to react to this atrocity? Without utterly destroying Hamas, how could they stop such attacks in the future from an enemy committed with all its heart, soul, and mind to the destruction of the Jewish state? Netanyahu’s severe response, the so-called War on Gaza, was the only viable option.
But, of course, it has given the left an opening to say out loud what they have long believed in private, that Israel is an evil Zionist pariah that blindly slaughters innocent Palestinians for the hell of it. In fact, that is not just untrue; it is the opposite of the truth. Israel will release dangerous prisoners and go to the ends of the earth to recover a single hostage. They warned the residents of Gaza when their attacks were imminent. Hamas, on the other hand, uses women and children as human shields, the height of degenerate cowardice.
Midterm Consequences
While the vote on this progressive amendment will not stop the flow of aid to Israel, consider the consequences if, as widely expected, Democrats take control of the House in November. With a gaggle of actual socialists now joining with their progressive comrades to defund Israel, all the energy will be with the passionate enemies of the Jewish state. This will result in either a severe cut to funding for Israel, if not cancellation, or an intraparty fight the likes of which we have rarely witnessed. While 113 Democrats voted to cut off all funding and ten more abstained, another 98 voted to continue aid. This has all the makings of an internecine civil war that could severely hamper the party’s path back to the White House.
But Democrats seem to be in a quandary. The far left has been relentlessly attacking the party establishment – and beating them in multiple House primaries – while the “moderate” wing knows not how to react. Even Former House Speaker and establishment powerhouse Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) reversed her long support for Israel, saying in a statement that she reluctantly backed the amendment to send a message that Americans “are rightly demanding an end to a perpetual cycle of war, and the Netanyahu government cannot maintain its current course.” Where is Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), himself a Jew? He has had nothing to say about the anti-Israeli vote by his colleagues in the lower chamber. Clearly, pandering to socialists has become a necessity as the party seeks to win back the House.
Why the Left Hates Israel
The rationale for the far left’s searing hatred of Israel lies beneath the surface. Envy is perhaps the most destructive of human emotions, and the remarkable prosperity of Israel stands in the starkest possible contrast to the misery perpetrated by Hamas terrorists in charge of Gaza. They long ignored widespread poverty and hunger for the sake of trying to implement the pledge of their Iranian masters: death to Israel, death to America. They envy the fact that Israel, established by an act of the United Nations 78 years ago but immediately surrounded by enemies, took a tiny sliver of land and turned it into a functioning and wealthy democracy with a powerful military capable of repelling attacks from Iran and its numerous terrorist proxies.
In supporting a full defunding of one of America’s most reliable allies, dozens of Democrats are emboldening Iranian resistance to settling a war that has all but destroyed its military. Leftists have effectively sided with the mullahs of Iran over the Commander-in-Chief of the United States. Next thing we know, the Democrats might send a friendly emissary to Tehran to share stories with the America-haters of just how awful Donald Trump really is.
Radical Islamists singlehandedly created this situation with their unspeakable slaughter of innocents and then were oh-so-predictable recipients of aid and comfort from the American left. The terrorists convinced gullible leftists that Israel was somehow responsible for October 7 and that, incredibly, they should weigh in on the side of Hamas and point the finger of blame at the victims. This embroglio brings to mind a similar situation with ICE. Joe Biden and the left singlehandedly and deliberately flung the southern border wide open, allowing all manner of criminals free passage into the homeland. And now they want to protest when Trump does the dirty work to clean up the mess Biden created?
Just as an arsonist should have no say in how to repair a house he set ablaze, the left should not even be included in the conversation about how to undo the enduring damage of the Biden years. And they have no moral standing to declare that Israel is evil for protecting itself from repeated unprovoked attacks from Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and other terrorist groups doing Iran’s bidding.
In the end, while it is legitimate to question or even oppose a three-billion-dollar subsidy for Israel, the transparent goal of the American hard left is to wipe that country off the face of the map. The world is facing nothing less than a twilight struggle between good and evil, friends and foes, conservatives and socialists, and the Middle East is center stage. You don’t have to be a supporter of Israel or even of foreign aid in general to understand that the battle between Israel and its enemies represents a choice between civilization and chaos. Republicans have spoken with one voice in support of the Jewish state, but now the ball is in the court of the deeply divided Democrats.
