#WTH is wrong with Chuck Schumer?

And his desperate attempt to realign with the antisemitic left

I have deliberately waited a few days before writing about Chuck Schumer’s astonishing anti-Israel intervention on the Senate floor last week. For those not paying close attention, he said:

There needs to be a fresh debate about the future of Israel after October 7. In my opinion, that is best accomplished by holding an election.

If Prime Minister Netanyahu’s current coalition remains in power after the war begins to wind down, and continues to pursue dangerous and inflammatory policies that test existing US standards for assistance, then the United States will have no choice but to play a more active role in shaping Israeli policy by using our leverage to change the present course..

Read the whole thing. It’s appalling.

Like many in my circle, my first reaction was outrage. My second was sadness that for political reasons, a party leader would turn on a foreign democracy in a pathetic attempt to curry political favor with — let’s call them what they are — antisemites. In both these responses, I was in good company. If you’d like to read what others have to say, including Democrats, check out these links:

• Here’s Benny Gantz, Minister without Portfolio, and a rival to Netanyahu: “The leader of the Democratic majority in the Senate Chuck Schumer is a friend of Israel, who helps her a lot even these days, but he made a mistake in his statement.”

• Fellow Democrats reax. Fetterman: “I would demand that there be no foreign influence on our elections, so I'm not in that.”

• Here’s the WSJ editorial page: “This reflects the political neurosis developing among Democrats, who wish some deus ex machina would allow Israel to “win” the war against Hamas in a way that would minimize the anger of the anti-Israel left in the U.S.”

But if we have one (ok, not just one) complaint these days, it’s a lack of thoughtfulness on the part of pundits, talking heads, and even putatively thoughtful people. This is the era of the hot take. So, consider this a somewhat cooler take, an effort to turn down the temperature and share an opinion that might withstand the test of time.

First, a general observation: The chaos in the GOP has for some years now masked a terrible turn in the Democratic Party. This is bad; patriotic Americans care about the health of their political system and their political parties. It’s not simply that the Democrats have taken leave of their traditional constituents in the working class, and among minorities; it is, as my colleague and Liberal Patriot co-founder Ruy Teixeira says,

… the rot goes very deep. This is not a one-off. Over the last number of years, huge swathes of the American left have become infected with an ideology that judges actions or arguments not by their content but rather by the identity of those involved in said actions or arguments.

If your world view is colored almost exclusively by a binary sort between oppressor and oppressed, between white and non-white, between the good (the left) and the evil (everyone else), you end up exactly where the Democratic Party has, indeed, ended up — as a party of coastal elites and out of touch college grads convinced of your own moral superiority. Now what, you ask, does that have to do with Chuck Schumer? A lot, I’m afraid.

Second, the specific problem: There are a lot of antisemites in the Democratic Party. Of course, that’s a gross generalization, and a slur against a still large percentages of Democrats who support Israel, or are non-self-loathing Jews, or who support both the Jewish people and the State of Israel in its current war against Iranian-backed terrorists. Still, unfortunately, there is a growing streak of Jew hatred on the left. (Check out the loathsome and self-loathing Oscar winner Jonathan Glazer, for example.)

The right response to those antisemites within the Democratic Party is condemnation, just as the right response to antisemitism in the Republican Party is condemnation. My What the Hell co-host Marc Thiessen argues that antisemitism in the GOP is a fringe phenomenon, while it has become more mainstream among the Dems — viz the incredible 125 Ds who voted against a bill in the House of Representatives condemning antisemitism on college campuses. If you’re a regular listener to our pod, you know I’m not sure that the whole “you’re a bigger hater than I am” is a productive argument. But I must say, that vote in the House shook me.

Polls make clear that while a supermajority of Americans — Ds and Rs — support Israel in its war with Hamas, a substantial minority of Ds are voicing their antipathy towards both Israel, Jews, and “Genocide” Joe Biden because of the ongoing conflict. Fully 13 percent of Michigan primary voters signaled their displeasure with Biden last month by voting “uncommitted.” Not a majority, but potentially enough to throw the state to Trump in the general election.

Those voters are the reason for Biden’s new turn against Israel, and for Schumer’s unhinged address. And there should be little doubt that Schumer coordinated his speech with the White House in order to provide “Jewish credibility” to the president’s desperate attempt to re-woo angry defectors. The White House and Schumer have cynically calculated that because Bibi Netanyahu is controversial, he is a safe political piñata — and by focusing their attacks on him they can assuage concerns about Biden’s heretofore solid support for Israel.

There’s just one problem with the White House/Schumer approach: The issues that nominally anger Biden and Schumer are not simply Bibi Netanyahu policies.

1. A Palestinian State. One consequence of October 7 is that the vast mass of Israelis now opposes a Palestinian state.

   1. Do they oppose such a state forever? No.

   2. Do they oppose such a state if it is a terrorist haven? Yes.

   3. Do they oppose such a state as a reward for Hamas’ attack of October 7? You bet.

2. Rafah. Rafah is in the southernmost part of Gaza, and it is the last bastion of Hamas, and the likely place where the terrorist group’s leadership is hiding, and where the remaining hostages are being held. Israel has been told by the White House that Rafah is a “red line.” This is, ahem, bullshit, and the national unity government — composed of Bibi and his rivals — has said so clearly.

3. Israeli Elections. Prior to October 7, the Netanyahu government was deeply unpopular with Israelis. Judicial reforms and several coalition partners had alienated many Israelis. But a plurality of Israelis of most political stripes agree that now is not the time for elections or recriminations. There will be a commission of inquiry about October 7, and inevitably there will be elections in Israel as well. After the war is done. After.

The cynicism of the Biden/Schumer approach is best illustrated by their elevation of the issue of Rafah, albeit inconsistently, as a “red line.” Biden and Schumer know the Israelis have to go into Rafah to eliminate the remains of the Hamas leadership and find the hostages. Because there is no elasticity in Israel’s strategic requirement, Biden and Schumer figure they can at once appease the antisemitic wing of their party by demanding Israeli inaction without actually stymieing realization of the war’s aims.

But this will neither satisfy the antisemitic left, nor provide a pathway for reconnecting Democrats with Israel’s political mainstream once Netanyahu has left the scene. Instead, it is a prescription for doing with the Democratic Party and Israel what Donald Trump and his acolytes have done for Ukraine among Republicans: drive wedges between his party and a deserving ally who has been victimized by naked aggression.

To be sure, there are legitimate arguments to be made about Netanyahu, the failures that allowed October 7 to happen, and some of Israel’s strategic and tactical choices in Gaza. But those arguments are mostly Israelis’ to make. If Biden and Schumer want to manage the antisemitic left, the right choice is to condemn it and everything it represents; to move the Democratic Party back to the center it is rapidly losing, and court independents and working class Americans rather than elitist Israel-haters; and to support the rapid elimination of Hamas.

While it’s not what the woke majorities at Harvard and Berkeley want, doing so would show the kind of leadership most Americans are looking for, and a repudiation of the growing antisemitic extremism of the Democratic Party. Standing up to the loons of the left would be a Sister Souljah moment for Biden, and a route to reclaiming the lead he is rapidly losing in the 2024 presidential election.