Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Democrats\u2019 internal feud over Israel is rearing its head on the party\u2019s biggest stage \u2014 again.<\/p>\n
Critics of Israel\u2019s military actions and the pro-Israel lobby\u2019s interference in recent Democratic primaries<\/a> are setting up thorny test votes at the Democratic National Committee\u2019s spring meeting in New Orleans on Thursday, where members will debate resolutions recognizing a Palestinian state, conditioning military aid to Israel and condemning the \u201cgrowing influence\u201d of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other dark-money groups.<\/p>\n The measures before the DNC\u2019s resolutions committee are unlikely to pass and are nonbinding even if they do. But they are the latest public clash that will pit more pro-Israel party brass against a base whose views on Israel have turned sharply negative and progressive activists who are increasingly incensed by the glut of special-interest spending in Democratic primaries that is often directed against their candidates.<\/p>\n In a sign of the heightened sensitivity around the politics of Israel, one DNC member who was granted anonymity to discuss private conversations said they had received direct calls about the resolutions from two presidential aspirants who would have to answer for the DNC\u2019s positions on Israel and AIPAC if they run. The resolutions are also highlighting sharp divisions within the task force DNC Chair Ken Martin established last year to set the party\u2019s strategy on the Middle East \u2014 a committee that remains in early stages and is far from formalizing an agenda.<\/p>\n James Zogby \u2014 a longtime DNC member and critic of Israel who is president of the Arab American Institute and who sits on Martin\u2019s Middle East Working Group \u2014 said the party needs to wake up to voters\u2019 shifting views on Israel.<\/p>\n \u201cPublic opinion has shifted. Democrats have clearly shifted. Candidates have shifted. And we\u2019re not where we were five years ago even,\u201d Zogby said. \u201cWe have to avoid the mistakes that we\u2019ve been making, which simply show us to be unwilling to accept or unable to accept the political realities.\u201d<\/p>\n A Pew Research survey<\/a> released this week showed 80 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents hold unfavorable views of Israel, up from 69 percent last year and 53 percent in 2022. A NBC News poll<\/a> conducted in late February and early March, meanwhile, found that 57 percent of Democrats view Israel negatively, a dramatic change from when just 35 percent held a negative view of the country after Hamas attacked it on Oct. 7, 2023.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Democratic Party, time and time again, is presented with absolutely winning issues,\u201d said Allison Minnerly, a DNC member from Florida who submitted the resolution criticizing AIPAC and corporate-aligned spending, and who unsuccessfully pushed another last year calling for an arms embargo on Israel. \u201cPeople 1) hate corporate money and 2) do not want to be involved in further conflict in the Middle East.\u201d<\/p>\n But Halie Soifer, the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, which is against the current measures, said the increasing critiques of the Israeli government by prominent elected officials \u201cdoesn\u2019t necessarily mean there\u2019s a wholesale shift in support for Israel\u2019s security or its right to exist as a Jewish state.\u201d Soifer, a former Kamala Harris adviser whose group has opposed similar efforts before the DNC in the past, cast the latest batch of foreign-policy resolutions as a \u201cdistraction\u201d for a party that\u2019s showing early success in the midterms by honing in on domestic issues.<\/p>\n The DNC and a spokesperson for AIPAC declined to comment.<\/p>\n Democrats have been here before. The party conducted a 2024 autopsy that found its approach to Gaza hurt the top of the ticket<\/a> \u2014 then decided not to release it publicly<\/a>.<\/p>\n At the party\u2019s meeting in Minneapolis last summer, Minnerly\u2019s weapons ban failed, while Martin yanked his measure calling for \u201cunrestricted\u201d aid to Gaza and a two-state solution after it passed in favor of creating the task force<\/a> to advance \u201csolutions\u201d to the party\u2019s divide.<\/p>\n The Middle East Working Group is slated for its fourth meeting this week in New Orleans. Some members lamented to POLITICO that the group lacked structure and any real institutional power. And they disagree on how best to approach their mission.<\/p>\n Joe Salas, a member of the working group from California, believes that Gaza was \u201cone of the things that lost us the White House\u201d in 2024 and is urging the party to adjust its response. He put forward the resolution recognizing the \u201cState of Palestine\u201d and pausing or conditioning weapons transfers to \u201cany military units credibly implicated in violations of international humanitarian law or obstruction of humanitarian assistance,\u201d telling POLITICO he hoped it would serve as a guidepost for the task force.<\/p>\n But Andrew Lachman, another task force member and the past president of the California Jewish Democrats, said he doesn\u2019t want to see members of the group trying to \u201cundermine the work of the commission\u201d by pushing catchall resolutions that could bigfoot its efforts.<\/p>\n \u201cIt would be much better for us to try to find ways for us to work together as a party, to stand together against these wars, than engaging in this kind of approach,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The resolutions have also set off a fresh round of lobbying among interest groups. IMEU Policy Project, a pro-Palestinian group, sent members a memo on Wednesday urging them to pass the measures.<\/p>\n \u201cThe signs are growing that the gap between Democratic leadership and their voters on this issue will be a liability in 2026 unless serious action is taken,\u201d the group warned in its memo, a copy of which was shared with POLITICO.<\/p>\n