Anti-Israel Democrats Count Their Votes

Whatever else one takes from the news out of the Middle East it looks like the political party with the bigger problem in America is not the Republicans but the Democrats. That’s what we conclude from the latest vote in Congress as America prepares for the midterm elections. It may be, as it is, that more than 100 Democrats voted to halt foreign aid for the Jewish state. With all the sturm und drang, though, they managed to gain only one Republican vote.That was from the sponsor of the amendment to cut off aid, Congressman Thos. Massie. Then again, too, he’s not going to be running for re-election. He lost the Republican primary for his seat in the 4th District of Kentucky. Mr. Massie’s hostility to Israel was among the reasons President Trump backed a former SEAL, Ed Gallrein, who schmeissed Mr. Massie. So if there’s another vote to cut off aid, it’s likely to have zero support from the GOP.Not that the GOP lacks for its own problems. One of their problems is the vice president, who, like the Democrats, has a bent for appeasement, blaming, say, the problems in the strait of Hormuz not on the Iranians but on — wait for it — Israel. In comments on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Vice President Vance sowed concerns over “people within the Israeli government” exercising malign influence on American politics and the Iran war.These murky individuals, in Mr. Vance’s telling, “are manipulating and trying to change American public opinion to keep the war going on indefinitely.” Mr. Vance could be attempting to steer the debate away from the failure of his own effort to negotiate with the regime at Tehran. He also ignores the role played by countries like Qatar and Communist China-backed Pakistan in pushing America toward a premature ceasefire with Iran.Mr. Vance’s gripes about Israel make him an outlier among Republicans, 75 percent of whom in a recent AP poll favor the current, or a higher, level of American support for the Jewish state. That contrasts with the nearly 60 percent of Democrats who reckon America is too supportive of Israel. That context helps to illuminate why such a large bloc of House Democrats voted for Mr. Massie’s bid to terminate American aid for Israel. The vote could best be viewed as a matter of symbolism over substance. In a GOP-controlled Congress, there is little likelihood of an actual aid cutoff being enacted. Again, nearly 100 percent of House Republicans and more than half of the Democrats want no truck with the idea. So Democrats like the former speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the minority whip, Katherine Clark, used their votes to score points with anti-Israel elements in their party.The choice is “unfortunate,” Mrs. Pelosi laments of her own vote. Congressman Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey warns that backing for Israel “is quickly becoming a minority view among congressional Democrats,” calling that “a shockingly seismic shift.” He warns that his party now has “socialists running on an anti-American platform: ‘yes’ to Hamas and ‘no’ to supporting one of our closest democratic allies.”It’s not our intention here to belittle the collapse of the Democrats in the generations-long campaign to secure peace in the Middle East. What is happening among the Democrats is something we’ve been warning of for years. It is a tragedy for the party of Truman and John Fitzgerald Kennedy. What we want to do is mark what is happening. In the larger context, the campaign to blame Israel for the problems of Iran is as yet stalled in the minority.

Anti-Israel Democrats Count Their Votes

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