The Democratic Party and Israel: A fundamental policy shift or a pandering play for votes?

• Published date: 12 April 2024
• Author: HERB KEINON
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

"Our letter to withhold offensive arms transfers to Israel picked up steam today. We added 16 signers for our final push – 56 members of Congress total. A shift is under way!" wrote Pocan, among the most anti-Israel representatives in Congress

In an interview this week on CBS News, Pocan, a former head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said, "I think it's time for a divorce from Benjamin Netanyahu," a sentence that – to the ears of Israel supporters cognizant of Pocan's long-standing hostile position toward the Jewish state – sounds like barely hidden code for "I think it's time for a divorce from Israel."

In light of last week's killing of World Central Kitchen workers, the letter – addressed to US President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken – read, "We strongly urge you to reconsider your recent decision to authorize the transfer of a new arms package to Israel, and to withhold this and any future offensive arms transfers until a full investigation into the airstrike is completed."

Along with Pocan, another coauthor of the letter – along with Jim McGovern of Massachusetts – was Jan Schakowsky, a Jewish congresswoman highly critical of Israel, who represents parts of Chicago and its northern suburbs, including Rogers Park and Skokie, which have substantial Jewish populations.

What makes Pocan's boast that "a shift is under way" not mere bluster and something that needs to be considered seriously is that the letter was not just signed by the regular suspects – anti-Israel progressives and members of the "Squad" – but also by a longtime pro-Israel stalwart, former speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi's signing this letter – alongside the likes of Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Cori Bush, Pramila Jayapal, and Jamal Bowman – shows that the once marginalized attitudes of the far Left in the party toward Israel are gliding into the mainstream.

The letter comes amid a perceptible shift in the Biden administration's position on the war.

Biden's position shifts

This shift began with Biden's State of the Union speech on March 7 during which he parroted as gospel Hamas's casualty figures, became more apparent with the US failure to veto a UN Security Council resolution on March 26 that called for a ceasefire without making that contingent on the release of hostages, and is seemingly gaining momentum week by week.

In a conversation with Netanyahu last week after the accidental killing of the aid workers, Biden...