The Shift: Democratic leaders embrace Netanyahu as more Democratic voters say Israel is an apartheid state

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared on CBS’ Face the Nation last weekend. At the end of the interview he was asked about a recent Gallup poll showing that 49% of Democrats sympathize with Palestinians and just 38% sympathize with Israelis.

In the last installment of The Shift I wondered how dramatically Netanyahu was impacting these numbers. Another recent poll (this one from Pew) says just 17% of Democratic voters have confidence in him. Just one out of every ten liberal Democrats say they have confidence in him. Most Democratic lawmakers don’t criticize Israel with much vigor, but when the right-wing PM was previously in charge, you heard more about the problems with “Netanyahu’s Israel,” and that was before the proposed judicial overhaul and domestic unrest.

Netanyahu insisted that his administration had little to do with the numbers but admitted they’re worth taking seriously. “Yes, I do think it matters,” he told CBS’ Margaret Brennan. “And I think we have to work harder to persuade our Democratic colleagues or those of – those Democratic – our Democratic colleagues who forget, perhaps, that Israel is the solitary democracy in the Middle East, that America has no better friend and no better ally than Israel.”

So how does he explain the numbers if he’s not to blame? Netanyahu claims that Israel is being demonized in the media. “First of all, it’s happening over time,” he explained. “It happened over time. It’s not related to this or that administration in Israel because it happened, it continued under the previous government as well. I think there is a demonization of Israel in some of the reports — many of the reports that come out of here. And I think there is a portion of the American public that finds it hard to understand that once you – you enter the – the realm of nations, you have to act to defend yourself….”

For some reason the CBS transcript of the Netanyahu interview omits his next point here. He expands on Israel defending itself and points out that Israel’s actions result in a lot of “collateral damage.” In other words, dead Palestinians.

“We constantly have to defend ourselves against terrorism that is aimed against our people,” said Netanyahu. “And sometimes when that happens you have what’s called ‘collateral damage,’ which means civilian casualties that are unfortunate. They’re not deliberate and that often enables the vilification of Israel to take place.”

So, support for Israel is declining because media is covering the fact Palestinians are being killed? Imagine that.

More than 100 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers in 2023 so far.

As these things generally go, Democratic voters are better on the issue than most Democratic politicians. This week Netanyahu met with a delegation of congressional establishment Democrats, led by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Other Reps. included Gregory Meeks, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Yvette Clarke, Dean Phillips, and Sara Jacobs. “The prime minister thanked Congressman Jeffries and the members of the delegation for their support for the State of Israel and emphasized to them the importance of the relationship between Israel and the United States,” said his office in a statement.

“Dem party leadership is deeply supportive of Israeli apartheid,” tweeted JVP Action’s Beth Miller. “But the Dem base is rapidly becoming less and less so. The last pieces to move in the fight to end US support for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians will be the people voting on that support. But it will change.”

Since Netanyahu’s CBS appearance, we’ve seen yet another poll showing support for Israel is declining among Democrats. This one is a University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll. It finds that 44% of Democrats think Israel is a “state with segregation similar to apartheid.”

Despite the fact that it is consistently demonized across U.S. political culture, there’s even growing support for the BDS movement among Dems. Most Democratic respondents haven’t heard of BDS but among those who have, more than 40% back it.

Pro-Israel House Resolution

This week the House passed a resolution calling for the expansion of Trump’s Abraham Accords. The move coincided with the 75th anniversary of Israel being established. The bill “encourages the United States and Israel to continue to deepen and expand bilateral cooperation across the full spectrum of economic, security, and civilian issues. It was introduced by Reps. Kathy Manning (D-NC), Brad Schneider (D-IL), and Mike McCaul (R-TX).

The bill passed by a count of 400-19. Here are your only No votes: Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY), Cori Bush (D-MO), Jared Huffman (D-CA), Summer Lee (D-PA), Betty McCollum (D-MN), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Mark Pocan (D-WI), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Chuy Garcia (D-IL), Andre Carson (D-IN), Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), Hank Johnson (D-GA), Nydia Velazquez (D-NY), Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA) and Delia Ramirez (D-IL).

(It’s worth noting that Summer Lee has come through on all these bills so far. She signed that recent call for a probe into the use of U.S. weapons in Israel and the one condemning Netanyahu’s extremist government. AIPAC was certainly onto something when they spent millions trying to stop her from being elected.)

There was some consternation about this effort among some Democrats and the liberal Zionist group J Street. A group of Democrats (including Manning and Schneider) put out a statement lamenting that there was no reference to a two-state solution.

“Unlike previous resolutions honoring Israel’s birthday and achievements, this resolution, principally drafted by Republicans, broke the longstanding bipartisan tradition of acknowledging the importance of achieving a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians,” it reads. “However, the strong bipartisan vote on [the resolution] was an important opportunity for the House to formally express our support for Israel as we have on similar occasions in the past.”

The Jewish Insider‘s Marc Rod reports that J Street took no stance on the bill, but encouraged House members to sign onto a new letter from Reps. Jamin Raskin (D-MD) and Anna Eshoo (D-CA) criticizing Netanyahu’s proposed judicial reforms and supporting the Israeli protests.

However, the letter lends support to Trump’s policies too. It warns that the judicial reforms could “jeopardize the progress made by the Abraham Accords.” Of course, the Abraham Accords are a series of joint normalization statements (and arms deals) between Israel and a number of authoritarian governments. Palestinians are purposely sold out in these deals, kept on the outside looking in.

The letter asserts that Israel must “confront challenges” in order to preserve its “democratic character and ensure that the rule of law prevails.”

Odds & Ends

???? North Dakota has become the 35th state to pass anti-BDS legislation.

???????? The Biden administration is sending Turkey $259 million to upgrade their F-16s. Jacob Batinga in Responsible Statecraft:

Turkey, however, has consistently used its fleet of F-16s — which will be upgraded if the sale closes — to commit grave, well-documented violations of human rights and international law. The pending upgrades would likely contravene the administration’s new conventional arms transfer policy (CAT), which commits the United States to “[p]revent arms transfers that risk facilitating or otherwise contributing to violations of human rights or international humanitarian law.”

The previous CAT policy required the State Department to bar arms sales to foreign states when it had “actual knowledge” that the transferred arms would be used to violate international humanitarian law or human rights law. Since “actual knowledge” is a very high standard, this language effectively guaranteed that the CAT would have little to no humanitarian safeguards. The Biden administration’s new policy strengthened human rights protections by replacing the “actual knowledge” standard with a one that bars the State Department from approving arms transfers when it is “more likely than not” that the weapons will be used to violate human rights or international law. 

???? The Texas Senate Committee on Education approved a bill that would prohibit academic boycotts of Israel and other countries at state colleges and universities. However, there’s a catch here: you can boycott any country deemed an official state-sponsor of terror by the United States government. So North Korea, Iran, Syria and…Cuba.

????️ Another BDS story out of Texas. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an appeal to challenge the state’s anti-BDS law. The appellant, Haseeb Abdullah, claimed the law violated his First Amendment rights, but the court said the lawsuit could not proceed because the law did not impact him.

Predictably this has been celebrated by anti-BDS voices as a big victory. “Texas’s anti-boycott law is both constitutional and, unfortunately, increasingly necessary as the radical left becomes increasingly hostile and antagonistic toward Israel,” said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. “Though some wish to get rid of the law and see Israel fail, the State of Texas will remain firm in our commitment to stand with Israel by refusing to do business with companies that boycott the only democratic nation in the Middle East. In this case, I’m pleased to see the court recognize that the plaintiff lacked any standing to bring this challenge. Thus, our important law remains in effect, and I will continue to defend it relentlessly.” 

This is all nonsense. The court didn’t rule on the constitutionality of the law, and insofar as these laws have ended up on trial, they are almost always found unconstitutional.

????️‍????⃤─ Roger Waters has won his legal battle to play a concert in Frankfurt. Magistrates acting on behalf of the German city had initially canceled the show and dubbed Waters “one of the most widely known antisemites in the world.”

???? Jonathan Ofir interviews Israeli playwright Einat Weizman about her play “Prisoners of the Occupation.”

???????? May “I’m proud to be a racist!” Golan briefly being considered for Israel’s consul general might have upset most people, but she had some backers. Here’s Duvi Honig, the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce’s founder and CEO: “May spearheaded our programs, helping build bridges between U.S. and Israel communities, and is no stranger to it. The mentality in Israel and in America are very different. In Israel, people speak very tough. In Hebrew, they say whatever they have to in order to get the message across, including exaggerating.”

???? The Adalah Justice Project is circulating a petition calling on Sam Smith to cancel their upcoming concert in Tel Aviv. “Israel’s government often claims to be a safe and welcoming place for the LGBT community,” it reads. “However, this claim is inconsistent with the reality of the regime’s discriminatory policies towards Palestinians, including those who identify as LGBT (And yes, we do exist and are here in Palestine!). Palestinians are subjected to numerous forms of violence and oppression, such as forced displacement, restricted movement, and unequal access to basic resources..”

“Playing Tel Aviv and crossing this picket line is not in line with a tour promoting love and freedom. We urge you to reconsider your decision and cancel your performance in Israel. Please stand in solidarity with Palestinian queers and all Palestinians fighting for their human rights and dignity.”

Stay safe out there,

Michael