Democrats and the Jews

In a shock to no one, Democrats now favor Arabs who inaccurately call themselves “Palestinian” over Israel. In a recent Gallup poll, 49% of Democrats now say they sympathize more with the Arabs living in Judea and Samaria, compared with just 38% who side with Israelis — an 11-point drop since just last year.

This moment in history has just gotten a lot more dangerous.

We can all point fingers — there’s plenty of blame to go around. From failed Jewish leadership to inappropriately politicized Reform and Conservative synagogues to status leftists, who are far more interested in their own fame than whether Israel and the Jewish people continue to exist. But I believe the main reason is that the lies of “Palestinianism” have finally succeeded, 50 years after the myth of an Arab “Palestinian people” was invented by the KGB and Yasser Arafat. 

Palestinianism has had one and only one objective: to create enough lies about Israel and the Jewish people that the world would allow the Arabs to destroy it. Goebbels would be quite proud of these Islamist activists; besides murdering children, propaganda does seem to be their strong suit. 

Democrats, who used to call themselves “the smartest people in the room,” have fallen for every one of those lies, from Israel being an “apartheid state” that “colonizes” helpless terrorists to Jews being the beneficiaries of “white privilege.” Indeed, the Democratic Party has become part of the Palestinianism propaganda machine, helping Islamist activists to wrap their lies up in trendy intersectionality and critical race theory.

What status-conscious Democrat wants to be seen on the wrong side of the Victim Olympics?

For those who want to look away: imagine what our grandparents and great-grandparents — staunch Democrats from the moment they hit Ellis Island — would think about this. Imagine what John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King Jr. — both ardent Zionists — would say.

As a lifelong Independent, I don’t understand how any Judean can remain in the Democratic Party after this. I don’t buy the “we will work from within” excuse because look how well that turned out. 

To those of us who believe that this version of the Democratic Party needs to die—that it will never return to classical liberalism—this poll just confirms the obvious. But the fact is: if every Judean and those who claim to not be antisemitic left the party over this, it would die. Three-quarters of American Jews — 5.7 million — identify as Democrats.

We’re seeing the damage of a pro-terrorist Democratic Party on a near-hourly basis. From  House Democrats voting to block funding of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system in 2021 to the multitude of missteps by Secretary to State Anthony Blinken to the continued funding of Islamist terrorism in Judea and Samaria, what more do the Democrats need to do to show where their loyalty lies?

Yes, disgraced former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has announced he is launching an organization called “Progressives for Israel.” But talk to anyone who lived through Cuomo’s astoundingly vicious and self-serving COVID policies about whether he is capable of thinking let alone doing anything moral. Even Democrats won’t listen to him.

In stark contrast, Republican views on Israel have remained the same; according to the new poll, 78% continue to back the Jewish state. 

Until this version of the Democratic Party returns to sanity or dies, American Jews who care about the survival of our people have one task: to make sure pro-Israel Republicans are elected to the White House and Congress. Since polls show that Donald Trump could lose to any Democratic contender for the 2024 presidential race, while Governor Ron DeSantis has a very good chance of winning — pulling in nearly all Independents and even some Democrats — this is a moment of reckoning for Jews in the GOP as well. 

We have to make sure one thing happens: Democrats need to exit the White House and Congress and not come back until they’ve returned to classical liberalism and sanity. And the only way to do that is with a sane GOP.

Truly, what else needs to happen for everyone to understand how dangerous this moment is?

Karen Lehrman Bloch is editor in chief of White Rose Magazine.