{"id":3910,"date":"2016-11-28T15:32:00","date_gmt":"2016-11-28T20:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/?page_id=3910"},"modified":"2025-08-16T15:40:28","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T19:40:28","slug":"radical-progressives-are-turning-israel-into-a-political-target","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/radical-progressives-are-turning-israel-into-a-political-target\/","title":{"rendered":"Radical Progressives Are Turning Israel Into a Political Target"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg listens to a question from the audience during a VoteVets Town Hall on May 13, 2025, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. | Cliff Jette\/AP<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Radical progressives have decided to weaponize Israel as a political issue in the upcoming elections. Their goal is clear: weaken bipartisan support for the U.S.\u2013Israel alliance and advance an agenda hostile to the Jewish community. We must be ready to fight back, organize, and ensure that our voices are heard. The stakes are too high to sit this one out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The article below was originally published in POLITICO<\/a> (August 13, 2025)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

GENERATION GAP<\/strong> \u2014 The questions were simple enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Would you have voted to oppose sending weapons to Israel (as more than half of Senate Democrats recently did)? How do you think the next administration should handle our relationship with Israel? Do you think it\u2019s time to recognize a Palestinian state?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Pete Buttigieg, a top 2028 Democratic presidential prospect who was queried on Pod Save America <\/em>on Sunday, <\/em>still dodged them. His responses, in which he discussed a two-state solution and opposition to Trump, elicited an angry and dismissive response online, in particular from progressives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), himself a potential 2028 candidate, posted in response on X<\/a> \u201cwe need moral clarity, not status quo.\u201d Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama, said, \u201cPete is a smart guy, but I have absolutely no idea what he thinks based on these answers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The frustration with (and mockery of<\/a>) Buttigieg\u2019s answers online lays bare the degree to which perceptions about Israel have changed over the past two years, and how America\u2019s relationship with Israel is set to become a more animating factor than ever in Democratic primaries in 2026 and 2028.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buttigieg has been roundly praised for his foray into new media and \u201cbro podcasts,\u201d platforms where the party has largely been missing in action in recent years. But the viral moment on Israel from his Pod Save America <\/em>interview \u2014 an otherwise safe space for Democrats \u2014 makes clear that even the party\u2019s strongest communicators must now contend with a newly reshaped party landscape on the issue of the war in Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his questions, podcast host Jon Favreau pointed directly to the shift within the party \u2014 at the end of July, the majority of Senate Democrats voted in favor of two bills that would block the sale of automatic weapons to Israel and would block the sale of $675 million in munition kits and bombs. Just a few months earlier, in April, only 15 Democrats voted to block similar transfers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a dramatic departure from the past, when the default party position was nearly unqualified support for Israel and those who broke with that stance \u2014 typically House progressives \u2014 were in a distinct minority. But it\u2019s a reflection of the new Democratic politics surrounding Israel, a directional change that has taken place with remarkable velocity since Hamas\u2019 brutal attack in October 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the aftermath of that tragedy, exactly half of Americans (50 percent) approved of Israel\u2019s military action in Gaza, compared to 45 percent who disapproved. But since then support has eroded significantly \u2014 in a July Gallup poll<\/a>, just 32 percent approved of the military action, the lowest point since Gallup first asked the question in November 2023. While support for Israel remains stable (and high) among Republicans, it has cratered among Democrats \u2014 just 8 percent of Democrats approve of Israel\u2019s military action in Gaza, down from 36 percent just after the attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bottom has fallen out of conservative Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s popularity as well. While Netanyahu remains popular among Republicans, among Democrats his favorability rating has plummeted to just 9 percent. That\u2019s only slightly higher than President Donald Trump\u2019s approval ratings among Democrats<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A June Quinnipiac University poll<\/a> found something similar. When asked whether their sympathies lie more with the Israelis or more with the Palestinians based on what they know about the situation in the Middle East, just 12 percent of Democrats said the Israelis, while 60 percent said the Palestinians. Twenty-nine percent had no opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These rock-bottom levels of support explain the subtle, but increasingly noticeable, recalibrations<\/a> that are taking place among Democratic candidates and elected officials. It reveals that traditional solid support for Israel is no longer politically sustainable in a restive party where the energy is on the left and among its youngest members \u2014 the two quarters where sympathy for Palestinians and support for an independent Palestinian state is highest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s a change even from 2024, the first post-terror attack American election, when Israel policy was one of the defining features of House campaigns and the Democratic presidential primary. Back then, pro-Israel advocacy groups helped knock off two progressive incumbents who were critical of Israel in primaries, and President Joe Biden continued to show support for Israel’s military campaign against Hamas fighters even in the face of an energetic \u201cuncommitted\u201d effort designed to protest his policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, support for Israel\u2019s military action among Democrats was in the mid-20 percent range, according to Gallup. But in the upcoming 2026 primary season, if current party sentiment holds, the level of support will be in single digits. And there isn\u2019t much reason to expect it will return to prior levels anytime soon since the primary season will unfold on the heels of reports of mass starvation in Gaza, rising international anger toward Israel\u2019s restrictions on aid and a renewed Gaza offensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The effects of that low level of support for Israel within the party could be wide-ranging. It could encourage protest candidates who tie it into their message of generational change. It will inevitably reshape the stances of the 2028 presidential primary field, not to mention recharge the party platform fight at the 2028 Democratic National Convention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What it suggests is a new normal going forward, especially because of the generational dimension to the debate. A 2024 Pew Research poll<\/a>found that among Americans aged 65 and older, 47 percent said their sympathies lie entirely or mostly with the Israeli people, while just 9 percent sympathized entirely or mostly with the Palestinians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The numbers were almost flipped with younger voters, however. One-third of adults under 30 said their sympathies were either entirely or mostly with the Palestinian people, compared to just 14 percent who said their sympathies lie entirely or mostly with the Israeli people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They have an entirely different outlook than older Americans, whose historical frame of reference includes the Holocaust, the founding of the state of Israel, the Six Day War, the Munich Olympics, the Yom Kippur War, and other events.Young Democrats have only known a world with Netanyahu at the head of Israel\u2019s government. They have had a steady diet of images of dead Palestinians and starving children in Gaza on social media. Against that backdrop, as Buttigieg found out this week, the recycled rhetoric of the past, in the absence of a clear stand, is no longer cutting it in his party.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg listens to a question from the audience during a VoteVets Town Hall on May 13, 2025, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. | Cliff Jette\/AP Radical progressives have decided to weaponize Israel as a political issue in the upcoming elections. Their goal is clear: weaken bipartisan support for the U.S.\u2013Israel… more Radical Progressives Are Turning Israel Into a Political Target<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":3914,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3910","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nRadical Progressives Are Turning Israel Into a Political Target - Jewish Political Guide<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow\" \/>\n<meta name=\"googlebot\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta name=\"bingbot\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/radical-progressives-are-turning-israel-into-a-political-target\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Radical Progressives Are Turning Israel Into a Political Target - Jewish Political Guide\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg listens to a question from the audience during a VoteVets Town Hall on May 13, 2025, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. | Cliff Jette\/AP Radical progressives have decided to weaponize Israel as a political issue in the upcoming elections. 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