Former security officials want the Democratic platform to improve on Palestine, but they don’t want to condition military aid to the country.

Michael Arria interviews Jim Zogby on the uphill battle over Palestine within the Democratic party over the past 40 years.

We never know where pro-Israel groups – AIPAC in particular – will draw their red lines,” said James Zogby tells Mondoweiss, In ’88 when I was representing Jackson in the platform fight, they wouldn’t allow the ‘P’ word. I was told that if we raised it, ‘you will destroy the Democratic Party.’ 

The Shift is a weekly politics newsletter from Michael Arria taking you to the front…

Since former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg bought his way into the Democratic race, it’s been a little difficult to keep up with all the stories from his past that are filtering out. One issue that hasn’t got much coverage is his reaction to Israel shelling schools in 2014.

Elizabeth Warren’s very-carefully modulated position on Israel/Palestine– praising Israel as a great ally and liberal democracy but also saying she might condition aid over annexation of the West Bank — reflects official liberal thinking, and the J Street line.

After the Trump administration killed Democratic Iran’s top general Qassem Suleimani in a targeted drone strike, the Democratic presidential candidates rushed to condemn the action. However, nearly every statement reiterated Trump’s justification for the strike: that Suleimani was an evil terrorist and murderer.

Norman Finkelstein says that the International Criminal Court crossed a “Rubicon” when it announced a formal investigation of Israeli war crimes in Gaza and its ongoing settlement project, but that the ICC will likely use a technicality, that Palestine has no standing as a state, to throw out the case. The real battle will be in public opinion, and the case may help force the reckoning inside the Democratic Party.

Democratic politicians voted overwhelmingly to condemn BDS, but a new poll carried out by Data for Progress says 44% of Democratic voters support BDS, with just 15% opposing it. 53% agree that the movement is legitimate, and 48% of Dems are opposed to anti-BDS laws, with just 15% supporting them.

Numerous polls suggest that support for Israel is weakening among Democratic voters. Among Democrats, sympathy for Israel is weaker than it was before Mr. Netanyahu took office in 2009. A Gallup poll from earlier this year asked voters whether they were inclined to support Israel or Palestine and found that just 43% of Democrats are partial to Israel. That’s the lowest number in 14 years. A recent Data for Progress poll found that 65% of Democratic voters support conditioning military aid to Israel in response to its human rights record. An October report from the centrist Center for American Progress ended up with an even higher number when they posed the question: 71% of Democratic voters support such a move.