https://www.commentary.org/articles/daniel-samet/democrats-break-up-with-israel/
The Democratic Party’s long-running love affair with Israel is over. Like most breakups, this one has turned ugly. The signs are omnipresent.
Washington Democrats are a case in point. Prominent Democratic politicians decry Israel’s supposed sins in Gaza and spare the culprit, Hamas. In 2024, then–Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer literally demanded the removal of Benjamin Netanyahu, the duly elected prime minister of a democratic ally in the grip of an existential war. In July 2025, 27 Democratic senators—a majority of their caucus—voted to withhold military assistance to Israel. Bernie Sanders, who led the legislative charge, bemoaned the fact that “American taxpayer dollars are being used to… support the cruelty of Netanyahu and his criminal ministers.” In August, Minority Whip Katherine Clark (the second-highest-ranking Democrat in the House) said the war in Gaza was a “genocide.”
Democratic politicians at the local level have assumed an even more venomous affect. New York City’s likely next mayor, Zohran Mamdani, refused to denounce the genocidal cry “globalize the intifada” and opposed a day of Holocaust commemoration. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who runs the third-largest city in America, has worn a keffiyeh in public and called Israel’s actions “genocidal.” Staffers for Omar Fateh, who has a good shot at being the next mayor of Minneapolis, applauded the attacks of October 7, 2023.
The anti-Israel animus in the Democratic Party could very well accelerate. Democratic politicians lag behind the party’s grass roots when it comes to the Jewish state. Activists routinely protest Democratic leaders they see as too sympathetic to Israel. The numbers indicate that the rest of the party is with the activists. According to a recent Pew poll, 69 percent of Democrats view Israel unfavorably. That’s an astounding number for a party once admiring of the Jewish state.
“I saw a Palestinian senator, his name is Schumer. He’s a great Palestinian,” President Trump said this summer of the Democratic leader. “He’s become a Palestinian, he has abandoned the Jews.” In the comment was the very Trumpian mélange of overstatement and truth. Schumer, a self-styled shomer, who dubbed himself a “guardian of the people of Israel,” was once a stalwart Zionist voice in Congress. No more.
The pro-Israel Democrat is on his deathbed. And he was, for decades, a fixture of the American political scene. His death came, in the words of Ernest Hemingway, gradually, then suddenly. Democrats were adamant Zionists for decades. In 1991, for instance, 62 percent of Democrats supported Israel. They then grew increasingly critical of Israel before becoming outright hostile. The reason? The Democratic Party has fallen more and more into the thrall of far-left theories holding that Israel is a “settler-colonialist” oppressor deserving of scorn, not succor.
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The Democratic affinity for Israel was on display as early as 1948. Then it was President Harry Truman, a partisan Democrat if there ever was one, who overrode his own Department of State in recognizing the nascent State of Israel just 11 minutes into its life. Truman recognized that the Jewish state would be friendly to America, and he lent U.S. recognition accordingly. Supporting his decision were many rank-and-file Democrats who believed that it was the right thing to do.
Democrats liked much about Israel. They adored its cause. Zionism was about the rebirth of the Jewish people—and the advancement of progressive ideals.
