Will the Democrats Stand on Their Israel Platform?
Its section on the Jewish state could cause indigestion for the growing faction of the anti-Israel left.
![AP/Alex Brandon](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwp.nysun.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2024%2F08%2FAP24232574765268.jpg&w=1200&q=75)
Democrats will on Monday vote to approve their partyâs platform, the text of which was released yesterday. It references President Trump no fewer than 150 times, and the Times reckons that it âoffers plenty of political comfort foodâ to feed the party faithful. Will its section on Israel, though, cause indigestion for the growing faction of the left who are dead-set against the Jewish state? That will be a tension to track amid the kumbaya at Chicago this week.
The draft platform insists that the âUnited States strongly supports Israel in the fight against Hamasâ and that âHamas sought to destroyâ a future of peace on October 7, but that they âwill not succeed.â It also promotes the âright of Palestinians to live in freedom and security in a viable state of their ownâ and involves a âpolitical horizon for the Palestinian people.â Not mentioned is that Israel is burnishing that horizon by dismantling Hamas.
Democrats are no strangers to platform fights over Israel. In 2012, the boo birds came out on the convention floor when language declaring Jerusalem as Israelâs capital was removed and then reinstated. This year, though, could make that ruckus look like tiddlywinks. Already, in a sop to the âUncommitted,â the Democratic National Committee has scheduled a âPanel for Palestinian Human Rights.â That appears unlikely to appease.
Platform aside, the Democrats are divided over whether to abandon Israel as a result of its war against Hamas. The Times trumpets that the âDemocratsâ Unity Convention Has One Giant Exception: The Gaza War.â Pro-Hamas protesters are gathering outside the United Center, and violence and vandalism are expected. Their consensus is that âIsrael also has no right to exist as a racist, white supremacist, settler-colonialist, apartheid, Zionist state.â
The question is whether the Democratic grandees who step to the podium this week will side with the platform or the protesters. The party is now trying to have it both ways in the hopes that fudging can be a prelude to beating Trump in November. Many Jews, though â and not only Jews â are growing alarmed by what they are seeing from the party of Truman. A recent poll showed the 45th president pulling 43 percent of the Jewish vote in Pennsylvania.
Another survey, in New York, discovered that Trump earns 46 percent of the Jewish vote in New York. Vice President Harris could have assuaged some of these concerns had she picked Governor Joshua Shapiro as her vice president. He came under sustained attack from the very elements of the party who are pushing for a divorce from Israel. She instead chose Governor Tim Walz, whose selection was hailed by the likes of Senator Sanders.
The Republican platform endorsed at Milwaukee simply states that âWe will stand with Israel, and seek peace in the Middle East.â Democrats would be well-advised to adopt a similar stance, sans caveats. It is up to Vice President Harris, though. Presidents Clinton, Obama, and Biden are yesterdayâs men. She seeks to lead now. So far, her signals have been worrisome â skipping Prime Minister Netanyahuâs speech at Congress, to name one.
Ms. Harris has said that she âwill not be silentâ on the warâs cost at Gaza. Will she, though, be mum with respect to the rising tide of antisemitism, which follows the anti-Israel movement as day follows night? Trump said this weekend that âthere has never been a more dangerous time since the Holocaust if you happen to be Jewish in America.â There is a direct line between the forces Ms. Harris is courting and the rising danger to Jews â and America.