Stop me if you’ve heard this one before but, a new poll indicates that Israel’s reputation continues to collapse among Americans, particularly Democrats.
The NBC News poll shows that just 32% of registered voters view Israel positively – down from 47% in 2023. A mere 13% of Democrats view the country positively, and nearly 60% of them view it negatively.
These findings come just weeks after an annual Gallup poll showing that, for the first time in 25 years, a majority of Americans sympathize with Palestinians more than Israelis.
Into this climate steps Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who has presidential aspirations. In a recent installment of The Shift, I wrote about California Governor Gavin Newsom, another presidential hopeful, who has begun altering his public rhetoric on Israel in response to the prevailing political winds. Up to this point, Newsom has been a dyed-in-the-wool Israel supporter, but now he says the country looks like an apartheid state and that the U.S. needs to condition military aid to the country.
So far, it appears that Shapiro is going in the opposite direction.
Shapiro has a new memoir, as potential presidential candidates so often do. In the book, Where We Keep the Light, he talks about being vetted as Kamala Harris’ potential running mate, a spot that ultimately went to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
Shapiro had refused to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and had criticized the protests opposing the genocide. He claims that Harris asked him to apologize for the protest comments, and he refused.
This alleged exchange generated some headlines when the book was published in January, but its worth reexamining as we know that the Democratic National Committee is working on a report that shows that the Biden administration’s policy in Gaza hurt Harris at the polls.
This puts Shapiro in a potentially perilous position with the Democratic base, especially because he’ll probably be running against candidates to the left of him in the primary. “Anyone documenting the evolution of Democratic Party politics over the last few years can see the red flags,” acknowledges the pro-Israel Jewish Insider.
“The governor’s positioning reflects a deeper rift within the Democratic Party — a tug-of-war between an increasingly vocal progressive wing and a broader but less animated moderate core,” notes The Hill. “While Harris herself maintained a traditionally pro-Israel stance during the 2024 campaign, activists say Shapiro’s outspoken tone could cloud the way some see him.”
Shapiro isn’t wavering on his position, despite all the polling. He recently rejected calls to condition military aid to Israel and, in an interview with Pod Save America, he took Newsom to task over the apartheid comments.
“If we really want peace, and I believe you want that, then we’ve also got to be acknowledging that language matters here, that words matter,” said Shapiro, who didn’t refer to Newsom by name. “And that we’ve got to use words that are actually rooted in reality and are able to bring the temperature down to create a space for that peace.”
As the U.S./Israel war on Iran spins out of control, it’s pretty clear that Democrats would benefit from turning the temperature up.
Joe Kent
National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent has quit his position, saying he can’t support the war on Iran in good conscience.
In his resignation letter Kent implied that Trump had lied about Iran posing an “imminent” threat, and said Israel had pulled the United States into a war that “serves no benefit to the American people nor justifies the cost of American lives.”
Despite this move, Kent doesn’t exactly come off as the most principled of people. Beyond a variety of wackjob, right-wing opinions that are irrelevant to the current discussion, he also worked for the CIA’s Special Activities Center, and defended the pardon of Eddie Gallagher, the Navy SEAL who fatally stabbed a 17-year-old prisoner and photographed himself with the corpse. His resignation letter openly reveals that he has no qualms about lethal force, as it praises Trump for killing Qasem Soleimani and imagines that his military strikes have defeated ISIS.
Like many Trump supporters, he’s a true believer. He thinks that Trump was a legitimate antiwar president and an “America First” politician before being duped by Netanyahu and other pro-war forces. “This echo chamber was used to deceive you,” he writes, to the most powerful person in the world.
However, none of the details about his personal views really matter very much. The fact Kent is an unrepentant Trump supporter just further underscores the fact that Israel is creating major rifts within the Republican party. This was already happening among voters, but the Kent resignation is a major moment because these disagreements are beginning to bubble over at the top. We’ve already seen prominent right-wing pundits like Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly criticize the war. Even Laura Ingraham took the administration to task for hitting the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab.
“It’s a dynamic we haven’t really seen before — arguably not even with the Jeffrey Epstein files (where the criticism was more of Trump’s administration than him personally),” notes CNN. “And those influencers can give others the permission structure to take similar positions. Elite opinion can filter down to the base.”
Media members and pro-Israel groups have dismissed Kent as antisemitic because he suggests that the United States went to war for Israel. There’s a certain amount of available fodder when you’re talking about someone with Kent’s politics. He’s promoted conspiracy theories regarding COVID, the 2020 election, the January 6th insurrection, and Charlie Kirk’s assassination, but how can anyone still claim that Israel’s connection to U.S. foreign policy is a conspiracy?
Over the last couple weeks, Rubio, Hegseth, and even Trump have all essentially admitted that Israel was the major reason that the United States is currently bogged down in a widening war and it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to justify to the American public. One can argue over how thoroughly Trump was “deceived,” but the reason for the war seems pretty clear.
Odds & Ends
🤬 Trump suggests treason charges for journalists as Iran war spins out of control
⛔ How might the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran fail?
🇮🇱 How aligned are the U.S. and Israel’s goals in Iran?
🗳️ AIPAC wins, and loses, big in heated Illinois democratic primaries
🗺 Electronic Intifada: How Arab regimes bet on genocidal Israel and lost
⚠️ Counterpunch: The US’s Strategic Alliance With Israel is a Disaster
🚪 Drop Site News: Iranian Officials Say They Have Been Ignoring Witkoff’s Private Requests to Talk
💰 Jewish Currents: AIPAC’s Attack on the Liberal Zionists
👀 New York Times: Joe Kent, a Top U.S. Counterterrorism Official, Resigns Over the Iran War
🇮🇷 Zeteo: Reza Pahlavi’s Movement Is Dangerous. I’ve Seen It Up Close
🐘 Responsible Statecraft: Vast number of Trump voters want him to declare victory and get out
❌ Common Dreams: Senator Corners Tulsi Gabbard Over Trump’s False Claim That Iran Nuclear Threat Was ‘Imminent’
📊 The Intercept: Illinois Results: Daniel Biss Beats Kat Abughazaleh in Blow to Left and AIPAC Alike
📱 Al Jazeera: Why is NYC’s Mamdani facing criticism over response to attacks on wife?
Josh Shapiro likes to emphasize his Jewishness and the importance of his Jewish faith; he says**
“And this is a moment,” he went on as the crowd waved Israeli flags, “where I lean on my faith. I am proud of my faith.”
If you think about this for a moment all this talk about his Jewish faith is ridiculous because it tells you absolutely nothing about who he is. If Shapiro runs for president you will have some questions: does he believe we need an industrial policy or does he think the free market will solve all our problems? Does he favor taxing the rich more heavily or is he a neoliberal who believes in ‘trickle down’ theory? How is he on environmental issues, does he favor a robust renewable energy program? What’s his management style – can he delegate or is he a micro-manager? Does he beat his wife?
Knowing that he leans on his Jewish faith tells you zero about any of these issues. Is his Jewish faith like Baruch Goldstein’s Jewish faith, or Albert Einsteins Jewish faith, or Jeffrey Epstein’s Jewish faith, or Jesus’ Jewish faith? We can’t tell, and as far as I can see he’s not telling.
Recently Shapiro said his faith is important to him – the Taliban folks can say the same thing.
**
As antisemitism rises, Josh Shapiro turns toward his Jewish faith | AP News
Re: Into this climate steps Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who has presidential aspirations. … Up to this point, Newsom has been a dyed-in-the-wool Israel supporter, but now he says the country looks like an apartheid state and that the U.S. needs to condition military aid to the country.
They are both violating the constitutional prohibitions against using religious tests against the rights of their own state educational faculty and staff positions right now. The last time I checked, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden and Trump have all funded Israeli military aid in violation of the UN General Assembly Emergency Resolutions, the Non-Proliferation Treaty and Security Council Chapter 7 resolutions on the subject of placing Israel’s IAEA inspections, and the Leahy Laws. We should look for a candidate who is not part of that long term racist problem.
The Congress should not give Trump any funding, let alone $200 billion for his vanity war on Iran. He is burning through $11 billion per week already and has a $1 trillion existing DoD budget. For God’s sake, this idiot was starving people and shutdown the government over $7 billion a year in SNAP benefits, $30 billion in Health Insurance Marketplace subsidies, and $60 billion in ICE funding. We are $38 trillion in debt and those “savings” that never existed are already long gone. The CBO reports that his illegal seizure of oil tankers also cost taxpayers billions. We would be billions ahead if we used a Magic 8 ball instead or canceled some of the $4 trillion in income taxes to pay for these costs. Low income people can’t buy health insurance, groceries, or visit non-existent hospitals that closed their doors in rural America. Likewise, Trump has repeatedly lied and attacked other countries, while promising negotiations and no more wars. Why reporters bother to ask or rely on his answers is a mystery to me. He says he isn’t putting more troops anywhere in the region, but wouldn’t tell the press in any event, and refuses to rule out drafting personnel for use in the military.
See: Exclusive: Iran attacks wipe out 17% of Qatar’s LNG capacity for up to five years, QatarEnergy CEO says -Reuters
Shapiro disconnected.
Max Blumenthal live on “Judging Freedom” discussing why Joe Kent dumped Trump administration. Max speaking at same time as Netanyahu’s live news brief. Richard Engel just asked Netanyahu a question. BBC not able to stream questions.
Come on over and listen to Max Blumenthal. Max digs in,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9H7IKU7No4&list=TLPQMTkwMzIwMjbJzNwpuUNE2A&index=1
“When asked about specific personnel changes at the town hall, Barri Weiss said CBS needs to shift away from undifferentiated “commodity news” toward exclusive reports that people “can’t get anywhere else.” See: the Business Insider “Exclusive” report: CBS News plans to imminently cut dozens of employees as Bari Weiss remakes the broadcast network
The only exclusive news CBS can deliver is when Skydance executives will be forced to show Barri to the exit.
“As the U.S./Israel war on Iran spins out of control, it’s pretty clear that Democrats would benefit from turning the temperature up.”
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The temperature would be turned up with a delineated understanding of the conditions on which aid was to be withheld. Also by having more voters understanding the workable plan for co-existence.