The Democratic National Committee last week released and then immediately denounced their own belated and incomplete analysis of the 2024 presidential election. The autopsy they commissioned somehow avoided any mention of Israel and Gaza, which is the approximate equivalent of a report on the Los Angeles Lakers’ season not discussing LeBron James or free throws.
This notable omission did not appear to be the result of any specific ill intent toward either Jewish voters or the state of Israel. The report also managed to review the Trump-Harris contest without any meaningful reference to inflation, border policy or Joe Biden’s age. But it does suggest deep and justified worries by the party’s leaders about the growing divide among their members over the relationship between the U.S. and the Jewish State. No nonfarcical argument can be made that the war in Gaza was the only reason for the Democrats’ defeat, but the dramatic decline in turnout among self-described progressive voters provides credible evidence that it was an important contributing factor.
The lack of an examination of the Israel/Gaza question indicates not just an oversight but an understandable anxiety among Democratic strategists. Polling shows an immense decline in overall support for Israel among party voters, and the fact that Harris managed to win fewer votes among both Jews and Muslims than Biden had four years earlier makes it clear that impassioned ambiguity is not an acceptable response to either side. It has been reported that the report’s authors had determined that Harris had lost support due to the Biden administration’s approach to the Gaza war, but no such conclusion was included in the version released last week. Palestinian advocates have charged that it was left out to avoid angering Jewish Democrats.
But the “Israel challenge,” which is as painful a phrase to type as it is to read, will soon be posing an equally vexing question to both political parties. While Democrats’ divisions over Israel are more prominent at the moment, there has been an accumulation of polling data that also demonstrates a growing animosity among young Republicans to the Jewish State. While the opposition is not nearly as pronounced as among Democrats, a majority of GOP voters under the age of 50 now have an unfavorable opinion of Israel. What is now primarily a partisan frustration will soon become a broader societal one.
As the poet Robert Frost once said, “The best way out is always through.” Ignoring a problem only prolongs it, and while both political parties have a vested political interest in pretending that there are only a scattered few antisemites in their respective ranks, the Jewish community does not have the same luxury. Democrats and Republicans have both decided that the best way to avoid accusations of anti-Jewish conduct is to launch even louder accusations against the other party. Both sides are correct that antisemitism is not limited by partisan boundaries. But while two political parties can temporarily hide from the consequences of such hateful prejudice, we cannot.
As you saw in the opening paragraph of this essay, my natural inclination is to criticize – or mock – the inability or unwillingness of a political party to confront the unpleasant reality that some of their most reliable voters harbor strong animosities against Jews. But it’s the job of the political parties to win elections, not to protect our people against ugly hatred. That’s our own responsibility and we must come to terms with the realization that the formula that was mostly effective for us between 1948 and 2023 is no longer sufficient. We need to upgrade and update that strategy quickly, and we cannot afford to be distracted by the inadequacies and evasions of others.
It would be gratifying if one party (or both) were to decide that eradicating antisemitism should be one of their primary goals. But rather than waiting for that improbability, we must begin the less cathartic but more necessary task of doing it ourselves. Once we can remind them that standing up against haters will attract voters, then they may join us. But not before.
Dan Schnur is the U.S. Politics Editor for the Jewish Journal. He teaches courses in politics, communications, and leadership at UC Berkeley, USC and Pepperdine. He hosts the monthly webinar “The Dan Schnur Political Report” for the Los Angeles World Affairs Council & Town Hall. Follow Dan’s work at www.danschnurpolitics.com.
