The Democratic Party sent Jews and pro-Israel supporters mixed messages on Tuesday.
Vice President and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris sent the first message – a negative one – when she tapped Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate.
Not because she selected Walz, a working-class Democrat with a solid pro-Israel record who, as a congressman, voted consistently with Israel, and who, as governor, has taken a pro-Israel stance, including ordering flags flown at half-mast after the October 7 massacre.
Rather, it is why Harris selected him over another candidate, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a committed Jew and strong defender of Israel, that is problematic.
In late July, after US President Joe Biden bowed out of the race, Harris became the candidate, and the vice presidential sweepstakes began. CNN’s political correspondent John King matter-of-factly said that Shapiro could be a liability because of his faith.
A snub of Shapiro
The risks, however, were not necessarily because Shapiro was Jewish – the radical progressives would not have protested had anti-Israel Sen. Bernie Sanders, also a Jew, been selected instead. Rather, they were because Shapiro was Jewish and unapologetically pro-Israel – a combination that will not fly with certain progressive elements inside the party, and certainly not with many Arab Americans whose votes Harris is courting.
The message sent with the snub of Shapiro – the target of an ugly campaign to get him off the ticket – is that if you are a Jewish and an unabashed supporter of Israel, you have no place on the party’s national ticket.
Only Harris will ever know why she picked Walz, whose state of Minnesota’s is already in her pocket, over Shapiro, who could have helped her win his battleground state, crucial to winning the presidency. But it is hard to shake the perception that it has to do with his being both Jewish and strongly pro-Israel – a perception that leaves a sour taste in the mouths of many American Jews and the pro-Israel community.
The party’s second message came a few hours later when St. Louis voters showed two-term Congresswoman Cori Bush the door. Representing Missouri, Bush, a member of the radical left-wing “Squad” in Congress, was one of the most anti-Israel lawmakers on the Hill. She was defeated on Tuesday by Wesley Bell, the charismatic St. Louis County prosecuting attorney strongly backed by the United Democracy Project, the super PAC affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Since this district is solidly Democratic, Bell is a shoo-in to defeat his Republican opponent in November.
By itself, this result is significant for pro-Israel supporters, as Bush has been stridently anti-Israel since coming to Washington in 2020 and teaming up with other Squad members such as Minnesotan Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and New Yorker Jamal Bowman to consistently bash Israel.
On October 8, Bush’s response to Hamas’s massacre was to call for an end to US government support for “Israeli military occupation and apartheid.” On October 16, even before Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza began, she introduced a House resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. She later termed Israel’s actions in Gaza an “ethnic cleansing campaign.”
All that, and more, was after October 7. Before then, she voted against a House resolution commemorating Israel’s 75th birthday, boycotted President Isaac Herzog’s speech to Congress, voted against allocating an additional $1 billion to fund the Iron Dome system, and so on.
But Bush’s defeat does not stand alone; it came a month after the defeat of Bowman, another harshly anti-Israel voice in Congress.
These twin losses for the far-left are significant because they signal that, contrary to a perception that the anti-Israel wing of the party is in the ascendancy, extreme anti-Israel positions can be politically damaging.
Bush’s defeat shows that the party is far from having fallen into the grips of the anti-Israel voices, something that provides solace, even while digesting the thought that a pro-Israel Jew right now has little chance of making it onto the Democratic Party’s national ticket.