Democrats have been insisting that their opposition to Israel need not make the party increasingly hostile to Jews. But Israel’s emergence as a central bogeyman in Democratic Party primaries is going to make it extraordinarily difficult for the party to police itself in any meaningful way, not because all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic but because the distinction will soon disappear in the frenzied atmosphere taking shape.
Efforts to drive up voter enthusiasm utilize much more extreme versions of the arguments for or against whichever policy is at the center of the campaign rhetoric. If anti-Israel rhetoric becomes a major organizing principle around the campaigns—instead of just another issue among many—we’ll hear the worst of it. Campaign messaging tends to raise the temperature as Election Day nears, so the primaries very well could be the start of an escalating season of Israel-bashing.
Trying to convince people that you hate Israel more than your opponents do makes the proliferation of anti-Semitic tropes inevitable. And partisanship causes supporters to rally around their candidate and defend their words and actions, which gives license for everyone else in the party to scale up their rhetoric as well. How far will the Overton Window move?
We got a preview this week. Graham Platner is the progressive insurgent in the Maine Democratic Senate primary. He notoriously got a large Nazi tattoo years ago and, according to people close to him around that time and others who’d worked for him, he regularly joked about it. Platner made anti-Israel rhetoric a centerpiece of his campaign, has in the past appeared to endorse political violence, and displayed a low opinion of racial minorities. The guy is made of red flags.
Then in the past couple of weeks he approvingly boosted white nationalist Stew Peters on social media and called himself a longtime fan of a different anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist while appearing on his show.
Yet by the end of the day on Monday, Platner had picked up a significant and telling endorsement from Arizona Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego. This, despite the presence in the race of Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, a moderate alternative whose political circle appears to be Nazi-free. As Democratic former congressman Dean Phillips posted on social media, “Help me understand those calling Republicans ‘Nazis’ while endorsing a Democrat who had the Nazi Totenkopf tattooed on his chest?”
Gallego’s move was important because he is testing the waters for a possible presidential run in 2028. He’s betting that the Nazi tattoo guy is where the country’s headed.
And how does Gallego himself talk about Israel? Not great. After backing Platner, he had this to say on the Iran conflict: “So Netanyahu now decides when we go to war? So much for America First.” A Democratic senator with national ambitions sounding indistinguishable from woke-right podcasters is a bad sign of what’s to come.
If the party’s officeholders engage in an Israel-bashing arms race, the distinction they think they are making between anti-Semitism and spirited criticism of Israel’s government becomes functionally meaningless. Moreover, what kind of atmosphere does this create for Jews who consider themselves part of the Democratic coalition? If the party’s prominent electeds egg on the post-tentifada atmosphere in which synagogues are mobbed by violent Hamas apologists calling for an intifada, does Ruben Gallego get to wash his hands of the repercussions of his actions simply because he didn’t say “Jews have horns”?
Now imagine Ruben Gallego and Zohran Mamdani and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the rest assuring Jewish Democrats that they oppose hatred in all its forms including antisemitismandislamophobia. Feel better? Of course not. Recently, Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen publicly suggested AIPAC is anti-American. What’s he accomplishing besides further encouraging the anti-Semites? Nothing. They hear every dog whistle loud and clear.
What’s happening here is the creation of an environment in which anti-Semitism will grow and prosper with almost nothing to slow it down. There will be less and less room for non-closeted supporters of Israel. And that will continue until the electoral incentives in the Democratic Party change. Ruben Gallego is betting they won’t.
