Bernie Sanders will not be the next President of the United States, and that is calming news for anyone who wants Israel to survive in a hostile environment. Not that he is hostile to Israel, or that he wants to see it eliminated. Not that he doesn't have good intentions. Surely, his intentions as good as all the good intentions with which the road to hell is paved.
Sanders made news in recent days by making appointments to the Democratic Party's important Platform Drafting Committee of people who are not exactly Israel's most ardent supporters. Press reports focused on Sanders’ selection of Jim Zogby, a notable pro-Palestinian activist to the committee. But his other appointments – Cornel West, a supporter of BDS, rep. Keith Ellison, who voted against Iron Dome funding in Congress – are not expected to balance the Israel ticket on the committee.
The Democratic platform and its language on Israel was an issue four years ago, when Jerusalem was omitted, then added, then booed by a Democratic crowd. And of course, party platforms are for the most part meaningless. As Walter Russel Mead put it back in 2012: “No president refers back to the platform in framing legislation, no congressional leader uses it to set the legislative agenda, no living soul ever reads or quotes it for any purpose whatever. No historian of American party politics goes back to study them, no journalist refers to them more than a week after the convention. They are dead letters, produced out of a sense of ritual and to the extent they have any purpose whatever, they are idle playgrounds aimed at keeping clueless party zealots busy counting coup and scoring imaginary points.”
And yet, they count for something. They count for what “clueless party zealots” deem important. And this year, more than in 2012, Democratic Party zealots want to single out Israel as one of the issues with which to toy.
Obviously, Israel cannot complain about American parties singling it out. Israel sought a special status in American politics for decades, and hence it has no right to argue that giving it special treatment is unfair (it has every right to make such an argument when it comes to UN special treatment). It is fair. But this should not prevent us from noting that the special treatment Israel is getting in the Democratic Party is changing its nature. From being singled out as a beacon of democracy, stability, and beneficial alliance, it is now singled out as a country in need of denunciation, schooling, and punishment.
Israel was never as noble as American party platforms made it seem. But it is even less deserving of the special treatment that the Sanders forces plan for it. Israel is hardly the country most deserving of condemnation. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is hardly the most urgent world conflict to solve. Israel's policy is hardly the most preposterous and most worthy of punishment. If and when the Democratic Party platform zeroes in on Israel, this will mark not a change in Israel's behavior. It will mark a change in Israel's status with the party, and a change in Democratic attitudes toward the world and its realities.
In American politics Israel was always a litmus test for other issues. It is a country – as I noted in many of my articles – that gets much too much attention compared to other nations. It is a country whose approval ratings among Americans correspond with their views on a wide range of topics. And currently, it separates the “conservative and moderate Democrats” from the “liberal Democrats” as a Pew story demonstrated yesterday. Note the following observation: “the share of liberal Democrats who side more with the Palestinians than with Israel has nearly doubled since 2014 (from 21% to 40%) and is higher than at any point dating back to 2001”.
Bernie Sanders is the leader of liberal Democrats (many of which are Jewish Americans). He is also the leader of Millennials, the young Americans, whose views of Israel are less sympathetic. “Millennials are the only generational cohort in which fewer than half (43%) sympathize more with Israel. And about a quarter of Millennials (27%) sympathize more with the Palestinians, the highest share of any generation”.
In other words: Sanders is not the issue – or problem – for Israel. He is merely a speaker of a faction and a generation with which Israel has a growing problem. He is merely a speaker of a faction and a generation that is gaining power within the Democratic Party.
True – it is not yet powerful enough to get the nomination. True – it can only have real impact on the meaningless party platform. But the trend seems real: from a troubling platform incident back in 2012, to a likely toughening of platform language in 2016, to a stance highly critical of Israel becoming more mainstream within the party, to a Congressional delegation less supportive of Israel. The highly critical faction is gradually changing the conversation about Israel within the Democratic Party. The highly critical faction is gradually turning on its head the meaning of singling out Israel.
There is an ongoing debate among Israeli experts and some of their American friends concerning Israel's ability to change this troubling reality. The question is whether Israel, by changing its policies and becoming more receptive to American ideas about the needed initiatives in a rapidly changing Middle East, can regain its favorable stature with the factions it is losing. It should come as no surprise that the people supportive of policies other than the ones pursued by Israel are also those who believe that these new policies will have the extra benefit of improving Israel's image among young and liberal Democrats. It should come as no surprise that the people opposing a change in Israel's policies tend to also be more skeptical about Israel's ability to significantly alter its image among young and liberal Democrats.
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