Why Biden can’t condemn Israeli violence

Today it is exasperating to the left that the Biden administration repeats the same old mantra about violence in Israel and Palestine– Israel has a right to defend itself, we condemn Hamas rocket attacks — when it is plain as can be that the conflict is one-sided and the community that will suffer the most are 2 million Palestinians locked in an open-air prison subject to missile attacks leveling their apartment buildings. Forty-six are dead, many of them civilians; and Israel promises more violence soon.

The Squad and Bernie Sanders and Chris Van Hollen can talk about Israel’s responsibility. So can the media– Vox and Politico and CNN and David Rothkopf. But Biden won’t touch it; and so for the 100th time I want to explain the power of the Israel lobby: Biden is afraid that he will alienate Jewish donors who care about Israel who make up a large portion of Democratic Party funding.

The Pew poll on Jewish life in America that came out yesterday helps to explain this. Jews care a lot about Israel, Jews are Democrats, Jews make more money than other Americans on average.

Here’s what Pew says about Israel. Emphasis mine.

Eight-in-ten U.S. Jews say caring about Israel is an essential or important part of what being Jewish means to them. Nearly six-in-ten say they personally feel an emotional attachment to Israel, and a similar share say they follow news about the Jewish state at least somewhat closely.

So when pro-Israel propagandists say that 95 percent of American Jews support Israel, they’re not far off. Yes there is Jewish diversity, Pew says; 10 percent of American Jews support the BDS campaign that is equivalent to the boycotts launched against the Jim Crow south in the 1960s. But overwhelmingly Jews are opposed to BDS — 43 percent– while another 43 don’t know much about it.

Jews are overwhelmingly Democrats: 71 percent to 26 percent, Pew says.

And comparatively wealthy. 44 percent of Jewish households make more than $100,000 a year, compared to 19 percent of U.S. households overall. Nearly a quarter of Jewish households (23 percent) make over $200,000 a year, compared to just 4 percent of the general population.

Put all those things together — Democratic Party alignment, love of Israel, and wealth — and Joe Biden is afraid to alienate pro-Israel Jewish donors by saying a word against Israel. Here are two insiders saying the role of pro-Israel Jewish donors is “gigantic” and “shocking” inside the Democratic Party. Here is The New York Times saying that the influence of Jewish “megadonors… is the elephant in the room for some.”

Of the dozens of personal checks greater than $500,000 made out to the largest PAC for Democrats in 2018, the Senate Majority PAC, around three-fourths were written by Jewish donors. This provides fodder for anti-Semitic conspiracy theories… Though the number of Jewish donors known to prioritize pro-Israel policies above all other issues is small, there are few if any pushing in the opposite direction.

Let’s just look at two of those donors who have been in the news lately to understand that influence.

Haim Saban is one of the biggest donors to the Democratic Party and he has lately teamed up with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner to push the normalization deals between Israel and Arab countries. You’d think that any Democrat having anything to do with the Trump team would become persona non grata. No; Haim Saban has too much money to ever be marginal. He loves Kushner because Kushner loves Israel. And here the two of them are working hard at one goal, to destroy Palestinians as a political force — which is the only point of the “Abraham Accords.”

Joe Biden will do nothing to alienate Haim Saban, just as Barack Obama would do everything to keep Saban on his side. Just as Hillary Clinton shaped her campaign stances in 2015 to please Saban.

Then there’s Stacy Schusterman. Schusterman is a megadonor to the Democratic Party who also gave more than $1.2 million to Democratic Majority for Israel, the Israel lobby group that is trying to ensure that the left doesn’t push the party toward a progressive stance on Israel. Schusterman backs a PAC called Americans for Tomorrow’s Future that spent $3 million trying to knock Ilhan Omar out of Congress and also tried to stop Jamaal Bowman from beating Eliot Engel in New York. And now Shontel Brown, a candidate for an open Ohio congressional seat, is desperately signaling his pro-Israel support to try to get the same flow of cash, the Intercept reports. Brown is taking on Nina Turner in a Democratic primary; and Turner is a Sandersite who favors conditioning aid to Israel over its human rights violations.

Joe Biden is, of course, against conditioning aid to Israel.

Stacy Schusterman reveals the heart of the American Jewish community. Look at the Schusterman Family Foundation, which she chairs. It gives millions of dollars away to well-meaning causes. The NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Bending the Arc. The Vera Institute of Justice which works on incarceration issues.

And the same Schusterman foundation also gives millions to rightwing Israel causes. The AIPAC program that sends Congresspeople to Israel — $1.5 million. Birthright, which sends young Jews to Israel– $3 million. This is big money, of course; and there are plenty of neoconservative pro-Israel orgs Schusterman supports, like MEMRI and Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

This kind of giving is vital to the Democratic Party. It’s surely why Nancy Pelosi has said that the Capitol would crumble and fall to the ground before the Congress stops giving aid to Israel. It’s surely why Raphael Warnock walked back his criticism of Israel in comments to the Democratic Majority for Israel in the days before the Senate election in Georgia in January. It’s surely why even AOC has tempered her own criticisms of Israel. The liberal Zionist organizations are giving Biden the ability to oppose settlements, but even they are not for reducing aid to Israel.

Yes young justice-Jews are changing the American Jewish community. But it’s a very slow process. 67 percent of Jews over 65 are “emotionally attached” to Israel, Pew says. But so are 48 percent of Jews who are 18-29!

The American Jewish community is still attached to Israel; and pro-Israel donors are the power that be when it comes to Middle East policy in the Democratic Party.