Tensions Among Democrats Grow Over Israel as the Left Defends Palestinians

In 1988, when James Zogby, the founder of the Arab American Institute, pushed Democrats to include a mention of Palestinian sovereignty in their platform, party leaders responded with a clear warning, he recalled: “If the P-word is even in the platform, all hell will break loose.” Eager to stave off an angry confrontation at the convention, the issue was shelved without a vote.

Now, with violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories forcing the issue back to the forefront of American politics, divisions between the leadership of the Democratic Party and the activist wing have burst into public view. While the Biden administration is handling the growing conflict as a highly sensitive diplomatic challenge involving a longstanding ally, the ascendant left views it as a searing racial justice issue that is deeply intertwined with the politics of the United States.

For those activists, Palestinian rights and the decades-long conflict over land in the Middle East are linked to causes like police brutality and conditions for migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. Party activists who fight for racial justice now post messages against the “colonization of Palestine” with the hashtag #PalestinianLivesMatter.

With President Biden in the White House, traditional U.S. support for Israel is hardly in question from a policy perspective; he has made his support for the country clear throughout his nearly 50 years in public life. Still, the terms of the debate are shifting in Democratic circles.

On Thursday, a group of leading progressive members of Congress offered a rare break from party unity, giving fiery speeches on the House floor that accused Mr. Biden of ignoring the plight of Palestinians and “taking the side of the occupation.” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York directly challenged the president, who had asserted that Israel had a right to defend itself. “Do Palestinians have a right to survive?” she asked in an impassioned address. “Do we believe that? And if so, we have a responsibility to that as well.”

Less than 24 hours later, on Friday, nearly 150 prominent liberal advocacy organizations issued a joint statement calling for “solidarity with the Palestinian residents” and condemning “Israeli state violence” and “supremacy” in Jerusalem.

The statement was signed not just by groups focused on Middle Eastern and Jewish issues but by groups dedicated to causes like climate change, immigration, feminism and racial justice — a sign that for the party’s liberal faction, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has moved far beyond the realm of foreign policy.

“The base of the party is moving in a very different direction than where the party establishment is,” Mr. Zogby said. “If you support Black Lives Matter, it was not a difficult leap to saying Palestinian lives matter, too.”

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For decades, both parties offered almost unquestioning support for Israel, with words like “occupation” and “Palestine” considered far outside the acceptable debate in official Washington. But left-wing Democrats no longer shy away from such terms.

“We oppose our money going to fund militarized policing, occupation and systems of violent oppression and trauma,” Representative Cori Bush of Missouri, a Black Lives Matter activist now in her first term in Congress, said in her own floor speech on Thursday. “Until all our children are safe, we will continue to fight for our rights in Palestine and in Ferguson.”

Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, a Palestinian-American from Detroit, referred to herself as “a reminder to colleagues that Palestinians do indeed exist, that we are human,” before condemning “Israel’s apartheid government” from the House floor.

The debate within the Democratic Party reflects a longstanding divide among American Jews, a mostly Democratic and secular group, who are enmeshed in their own tussle over how to view the Israeli-Palestinian tensions. An older generation sees Israel as an essential lifeline amid growing global anti-Semitism, while young voters struggle to reconcile the right-wing policies of the Israeli government with their own liberal values.

A survey released in the past week by the Pew Research Center found that two-thirds of American Jews 65 and older described themselves as emotionally attached to Israel, compared with 48 percent of Jewish adults under 30.

“The rise of identity politics made this almost inevitable,” said Daniel Gordis, senior vice president at the Shalem College in Jerusalem. “It looks like weak against the strong, the disenfranchised against the enfranchised, the stateless against the state.”

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As many as a quarter of Jews in the United States vote Republican, the survey showed, a marked increase in the last several years. {snip}

The Pew survey showed that among Republican Jews, nearly three-quarters said they felt a strong attachment to Israel, while only 52 percent of Jewish Democrats expressed the same belief. Jewish Democrats are also much more likely to say that the United States is too supportive of Israel.

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