| Washington Wrap |

Democrats Take a Step to the Left

By Omri Nahmias | March 12, 2019

The Democrats punted: Now what?

Days after the US House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a resolution condemning hate in all its forms, Jewish advocates were asking why Democrats found it so difficult to specifically condemn Rep. Ilhan Omar for her anti-Semitic comments.

Jewish organizations from across the ideological spectrum — from the Zionist Organization of America on the right to the Anti-Defamation League — had denounced Omar’s statements as anti-Semitic. Commentators from the right and center further suggested that the party had reached an inflection point, at which mollifying the progressive left took precedence over soothing the hurt feelings of Jewish voters.

Jewish lawmakers were similarly startled. Rep. Ted Deutch, a Florida Democrat, delivered an emotional speech on the House floor voicing his disappointment over the party decision to vote on the “all inclusive” measure. “The House of Representatives voted to condemn anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, bigotry, racism, and hatred of all kinds. All are worthy of condemnation,” he said. “I joined my colleagues in condemning them all. But I feel let down by some colleagues who seem to have questioned those of us who feel the weight of history when we hear classic anti-Semitic language — a history that has led to targeting Jews, expelling Jews from their countries, violence against Jews, and attempts to exterminate the Jewish People. Anti-Semitism is worthy of being condemned, singularly. I hope this painful week is never repeated in this Congress.”

Josh Block, a former Clinton administration official and CEO and president of The Israel Project, a nonpartisan educational organization, said the party hadn’t gone far enough. “It’s always well and good when everyone affirms that bigotry and racism is unacceptable,” he said. “But given the events of the past several weeks and the past couple of years, and the fact that Jews in America remain by a three-to-one margin the number one victims of religiously motivated hate crimes in America, I think it would be important for the leadership of the Democratic Party to make absolutely crystal clear that the kind of bigotry and racist anti-Semitic views expressed by Ilhan Omar, a sitting member of Congress, are entirely unacceptable.”

Block added that it was “deeply worrisome” to watch the Democratic leadership go through “difficult spasms” to get Ilhan Omar to apologize for her latest anti-Semitic statements “not just on her Jewish constituents, not just on Jewish Americans, but on her Jewish colleagues in Congress,” he said. “And the issue at hand is not politics, it’s not policy, it’s the language of anti-Semitic racism that seeks to ostracize, delegitimize, and stigmatize American Jews to make their political participation less welcome. That language is unique, and it needs to be singled out uniquely and stopped.”

The issue is far from dead. Evidence can be found in the comments of three of the liberal party’s presidential candidates, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Bernie Sanders, who supported Omar and defended her words as mere criticism of Israeli policy. That was significant if only because the political positions of presidential hopefuls are carefully vetted and backed by internal polling. That the senators decided to publicly defend Omar shows us that all three believe they can benefit from backing a congresswoman who is strongly critical of Israel and Jews.

To recap, in recent weeks Omar has charged that Jews control Congress with their money and has suggested that Jewish lawmakers are dually loyal to Israel and the United States. All this comes from one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress, a Somali immigrant who once said that Israel had “hypnotized” the world and who beseeched Allah to “awaken” the people and help them see the “evil doings” of the Jewish state.

Mark Mellman, a well-known pollster and president of Democratic Majority, an advocacy group that describes itself as “the voice of pro-Israel Democrats,” told Mishpacha that the resolution should be examined in a broader context. “It does condemn anti-Semitism, and it makes clear that the accusations of dual loyalty is anti-Semitic, which is exactly the kind of accusation that Omar was making,” Mellman said. “Second, just a few weeks ago, the joint leadership of the Democrats united together and condemned Omar by name and also made it clear that they are strong supporters of Israel. So if you look at the whole set of events in context, I think it’s quite clear that the vast majority of Democrats are strongly pro-Israel, and they clearly don’t like what she said.”

And yet, one might wonder if the Democratic Party is undergoing a transformation like that of the Labour Party in Britain, one in which a traditional liberal party morphed into a hard-left faction. Mellman said he sees no evidence of such a transformation. “There is no Democrat who’s like Jeremy Corbyn,” he contested. “I don’t think the comments of any of the Democrats are ‘Corbynist’ in nature.” On the other hand, Mellman conceded that there is a fight to be waged within the party ranks to make sure the Democrats don’t take a hard left turn.

Block was especially disturbed that Senators Sanders, Warren, and Harris had tried to make Omar’s comments an issue of Israel policy and not bias against Jews.

“The issue here is anti-Semitism, the naked use of anti-Semitism in a way that seeks to delegitimize, ostracize, and stigmatize Jewish participation in the political process,” he said. “And any presidential candidate who fails to make the distinction between that and legitimate policy discussions is both lying and doing a deep disservice to the Jewish community of the United States.”

As all the news about Omar was percolating, there was more bad news for pro-Israel Democrats. A new Gallup poll showed a wide gap between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to support for Israel (see sidebar), confirming a decades-long trend. But Mellman, for one, insisted that facts speak louder than poll numbers. The overwhelming majority of Democratic elected officials across the country, he said, are strongly pro-Israel. “It will take an effort to make sure that it stays that way, but the vast majority are strongly in the pro-Israel category,” he said.

The Democrats fought hard in the 2018 midterm elections to secure the majority in the House after eight years of Republican rule. Those forming the ideological center of the party hoped that their new power could help them unseat President Trump. But instead, for the moment at least, they have found themselves ensnared in a chain of controversies and scandals. That the party now includes within its tent two factions with differing aspirations and motivations should be a warning sign for Democrats as candidates head toward 2020.