My column today in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Bruce Ledewitz: Israel is now a politically partisan issue

Special to the Post-Gazette

Dec 30, 2024

5:30 AM

Joe Biden may be the last pro-Israel Democrat elected President. But he won’t be the last Democrat elected President. What does the future hold now that Israel has become a partisan issue?

It is hard to imagine now, but since the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, and all the way through the 20th Century, support for Israel was not a political issue. It was a shared assumption.

To a certain extent, a change from that consensus was inevitable. Now that there is a substantial domestic voting bloc that is more supportive of the Palestinian position, it is not surprising that one party has become a forum more open to its views.

The changing consensus

But that is a recent development. For all his frustration with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Bill Clinton was regarded as a staunch friend of Israel and a close ally of the Israeli government.

The American pro-Israel consensus did not really change until the election of Barack Obama in 2008. Many Israelis regarded Obama as too accommodating of Iran and as too close to the Arab world in general.

Disagreement was not the cause of the change. There had always been differences between Israel and American Presidents. President Dwight D. Eisenhower publicly broke with Israel over the Suez invasion and its aftermath in 1956.

Israel did not begin to be a partisan issue, with Democrats on one side and Republicans on the other, until Netanyahu’s speech to a joint session of Congress in 2015 attacking the proposed Iranian agreement that the Obama Administration had been negotiating. No members of the Administration met with Netanyahu and several Democrats skipped the speech.

Netanyahu may not have intended to take a partisan side in American politics. He may have regarded the Iranian agreement as such a threat that he had to attempt to derail or modify it in any way he could.

But if Netanyahu was sincere, he was also used by Republican leaders for partisan advantage. House Speaker John Boehner should never have invited a foreign leader to attack American foreign policy on the floor of Congress. Our disagreements should remain among ourselves.

If Netanyahu wanted the Israel-American relationship to remain above politics, as he said he did in his speech, he should not have accepted the invitation.

The partisan shift over Israel accelerated during Donald Trump’s first term as President, when he exited the Iranian Agreement and recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. That recognition was something American politicians had promised to do but never did. Most Israelis have been grateful to Trump ever since.

The partisan division

Partisanship over Israel reached new heights during the 2024 Presidential campaign.

Listening to some of the rhetoric of supporters of Israel, you would have thought the election was between Trump and Hamas. Campaign narratives slid from U.S. policy in the Middle East to events on American college campuses, as if Kamala Harris had something to do with pro-Palestinian protests.

The actual Biden Administration record of support for Israel was lost in this excessive campaign rhetoric. Biden went to Israel 11 days after the brutal Oct. 7 attack — actually went there in the middle of hostilities — to symbolize American support and resolve and warn Iran and its allies against coordinated attacks on Israel.

Biden was effective in muting subsequent attacks on Israel. There was no wider war. Biden not only supplied Israel with weapons but provided direct military assistance in aiding Israel in shooting down Iranian missiles.

And since that time, it has become clear that the derided Biden Administration sanctions on Iran have weakened Iran economically and have limited Iranian options.

It is true that Biden repeatedly urged Netanyahu to show restraint in Gaza and even imposed limits on the use of American weapons. But Trump too has voiced concerns on the length and ferocity of Israel’s Gaza incursion.

Harris never wavered in her support of Biden’s pro-Israel policies. But it was clear that Netanyahu and many supporters of Israel in America discounted her and Biden’s record. They acted as if the election choice was between support and non-support for Israel.

Politically speaking, Harris gained nothing by not breaking with Biden over Israel. She might have won Michigan if she had. Future Democratic candidates for President will not make the same mistake.

If Harris had won, she would have owed Israel nothing. She would have been free to make U.S. support for a two-state solution effective rather than half-hearted and ineffectual, as it has been. She would have been free to really confront Israel on other issues as well.

Israel’s mistake

In the future, there will still be strong supporters of Israel in the Democratic Party. But the bi-partisan consensus over Israel has been broken.

It is a mistake for a foreign nation to be too closely identified with one American political party. Eventually, the other party comes to power. Wise foreign leaders know this.

Israel and its strongest supporters forgot that lesson in 2024 and exaggerated their differences with Democrats. That decision will have serious consequences for American foreign policy in the future.

Bruce Ledewitz is a professor of law at the Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University. His previous article was “Make the Democrats great again.” The views expressed do not represent those of Duquesne University.

First Published: December 30, 2024, 5:30 a.m.