They're Losing
Zohran and the decline of the pro-Israel voter
A Muslim, pro-Palestine Democrat is poised to become the next mayor of New York City. Still, most Democratic elected officials in America are relentlessly pro-Israel; they do not entertain conditioning military aid to the Jewish State and they are, in almost every instance that matters, wholly deferential to the Netanyahu government. For the Republican Party, this posture can at least be explained away by an evangelical base that believes Israel must be backed at all costs. Ask J.D. Vance, Mr. America First, about why the United States must be such a steadfast supporter of a politically volatile nation thousands of miles away, and he’ll mutter platitudes about Christians and the Bible. Even if you don’t believe in that stuff, there’s logic there.
The Democratic position is far more untenable. Most Republicans don’t care very much about Israel, but it’s not as if there’s any pro-Palestinian movement within the GOP tent. This is not true on the Democratic side. Progressive and liberal Democrats are deeply dissatisfied with the right-wing Netanyahu government. Culturally moderate Black, Latino, and Asian voters truly don’t think about Israel very often, unless they are deeply religious. And even then, within the Black community at least, there’s sympathy for the Palestinian cause. Jewish voters back Israel, sure, but it depends on the type of Jew. My secular liberal tribe is deeply wary of all it has come to represent; revanchist ethno-states don’t fit neatly into the liberal project. I think of my late father, who lived on an Israeli kibbutz in the 1960s and spent his last decades—the entirety that I knew him—insisting, very openly, the establishment of a nation there in 1948 was a mistake. Plenty of Jews don’t think that, and the Orthodox Jews certainly are quite pro-Israel, but it’s not as if they make up any serious faction of the Democratic Party. The carnage in Gaza—the tens of thousands dead, far beyond the 1,200 Hamas slaughtered on Oct. 7—cannot be ignored.
The numbers tell the story. According to one poll recently shared on CNN, Democrats sympathized more with Israelis by 13 points in 2017. Now, they sympathize with Palestinians by 43 points. Among Democrats under 50, the differences are even more stark: it was Israelis by 14 points in 2017, and now it’s Palestinians by 57 points. As someone who predicted, back in 2017, this cleavage would eventually manifest itself, I can’t say I am surprised.
Zohran Mamdani’s rise is a harbinger of what’s to come—the old order is truly getting swept away.