The State of Israel enjoyed bipartisan consensus for decades.  The Democrat party, under Presidents Johnson, Clinton, and Biden (until recently), along with U.S. Democrat senators, was among the staunchest supporters of Israel during the 1970s and 1980s.  It would suffice to mention just a few notable names: Henry “Scoop” Jackson (D-Wash.), Frank Church (D-Idaho), and Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii).  In recent decades, however, it was the Republican party that stood solidly behind Israel.

Israel shares with the U.S. a democratic tradition and humanitarian values.  It was and remains a strategic and trustworthy ally, which has proved its loyalty to the U.S. at the U.N. and in the battlefields of the Middle East.  Israel stood on the front line against the anti-American forces of communism during the Cold War and currently stands as a bulwark against radical Islamist terrorism.

Since President Barack Hussein Obama took control of the Democrat party in 2009, the strength of the consensus over Israel has been breaking down.  The Democrat party became increasingly even-handed about Israel, and now, with Kamala Harris as the party’s candidate for president, it appears the party is ready to move away from Israel because a large segment of her base is anti-Israel, particularly among the so-called “progressive wing” of the party.

Obama demonstrated his appeasement of the Islamic Republic of Iran with relaxation of sanctions, a $1.6-billion shipment of cash (in the dead of night), and his fostering of the JCPOA (the Iran deal) — enabling Iran to become a threshold nuclear power and an existential threat to Israel.  But Iran is not just another state; it is the world’s state sponsor of global terrorism.  Iran threatens to “wipe Israel off the map.”  Obama sought to create a balance of power in the Middle East by countering Israel and Saudi Arabia with a rising Iran.  And when the people of Iran, oppressed by their fanatical regime, asked Obama, as they bravely took to the streets during the 2009 Iranian Green Movement, “Are you with us or with them?” (meaning the ayatollahs), he ignored them.  So much for Obama’s quest for democracy.

In June 2009, just a few months after his inauguration, he made one of his first trips abroad to Cairo, Egypt, with another show of unabashed appeasement of the Muslim world.  He showered praise on Islam as a religion of “tolerance and racial equality.”  It is laughable that the very institution he spoke at, Al-Azhar, the foremost Sunni Muslim institution, encourages the persecution of Coptic Christians, an ancient community made up of the most authentic Egyptians.  So much for tolerance.  (See Quran 5:51: “Take not Jews or Christians as your friends or protectors.”)  And of course, there is the issue of slavery in the Arab Muslim world, which “officially” ended in 1962 but, in all practicality, is ongoing, with the exploitation of foreign workers treated as slaves in the Gulf states.

Long before Islam existed, Jewish sages taught that “he who murders the innocent, it is as if he has murdered all humanity.”  Yet Obama, when speaking to an audience of Muslims, pandered to them by crediting the Quran with this teaching.  Finally, just before leaving office in December 2016, he ordered the U.S. delegation to the U.N. to abstain from a vote on United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, which condemned Israeli settlements, allowing the resolution to pass.

According to U.S. representative Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press on September 1, Kamala Harris “is charting a new direction on Israel.”  Khanna noted that the Democrat presidential nominee will reportedly back conditions on U.S. aid to Israel if she wins in November.  Khanna added that he had been pushing Harris to attach conditions on aid for Israel, saying, “I have been pushing her to support enforcement of U.S. law.  That is what the enforcement of the Leahy Law and our security laws require,” referring to a situation where a country deliberately caused a humanitarian crisis.

Khanna’s assessment of the situation in Gaza is misconstrued.  It is Hamas, and only Hamas, that is responsible for the humanitarian crisis.  Additionally, he does not mention that shipments of food are commandeered by Hamas and not distributed freely to the Gazans.  Hamas deliberately provoked the war by invading Israel, murdering innocent civilians, and taking Israeli hostages into Gaza.  Israel has the moral right and responsibility to destroy Hamas’s ability to attack the Jewish state once again, and at the same time free the hostages.  The crisis is of Hamas’s own making. 

Although we cannot judge Kamala Harris yet on how she would act toward Israel, clearly, she will be compelled to listen to the pro-Hamas “progressive” wing of her party.  Kamala’s choice of Phil Gordon to be her national security adviser, a former Obama administration official who identifies himself as a “progressive” Democrat, does not bode well for a strong relationship with Israel.  In 2016, Gordon co-authored a report for the Council on Foreign Relations that began with “The U.S. relationship with Israel is in trouble.”  There are indications that Harris would appoint Maher Bitar as director of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence should she win the presidency.  At Georgetown University, Bitar was a leader of the antisemitic, pro-Hamas Students for Justice in Palestine organization, and he has hosted conferences praising Islamic terrorism.

Regardless of which direction the Israel policies of Kamala Harris would take, ultimately, she is part of a party that has turned from the bipartisan consensus on Israel.  At the 2012 Democratic Party Convention, which renominated Obama, the platform committee attempted to drop the reference to Jerusalem as Israel’s eternal capital and to remove any references to God.  When the DNC chair sought to reverse it, chaos erupted, with at least half the delegates booing the chair for altering the platform on a voice motion. 

Jon Phoenix, 35, a Jewish delegate to the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, representing Kentucky, best summarized the state of mind of the Democrat party toward Israel.  Phoenix, in his interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), identified himself as a leftist and progressive, and had this to say: “Both sides are supposed to support Israel, and what I see on the convention floor, what worries me, is support for Israel disappearing gradually out of the Democratic Party — unless we fight for it.  Because I don’t want support for Israel to be Republican-only.”

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