The events at the Democratic National Committee meeting this week have an increasing number of people asking why party officials are so obsessed with the conflict in Gaza at the expense of the pressing issues they believe are affecting their voters right here at home.
This was raised, in fact, at the meeting itself. “I truly hope that, as a party, we can move beyond this issue,” said one DNC member. “Our country is falling apart.”
The fact that such questions came from DNC members at the meeting hints at the answer.
Democrats—that is, regular Americans who tend to vote for Democrats—aren’t actually obsessed with Israel and Gaza. Instead, party activists have orchestrated a situation in which “Gaza,” as a stand-in for anti-Israel sentiment, is a genuine litmus test.
This began well before the current war, so it is not a reaction to the current expression of Israeli self-defense. To progressives, “Gaza” is not a place but an ideology. And commitment to that ideology is the price of admission in left-wing political activism. As evidenced by yesterday’s debacle, in which DNC chair Ken Martin withdrew his own Israel-related resolution after it passed because it angered anti-Israel activists, those activists have managed to mostly erase the distinction between themselves and certified officers of the national party.
This is the reason the campaign against Israel is one of intimidation, not persuasion. Put on a mask, follow the grad student wearing the keffiyeh, and under no circumstances are you to speak to the press. Repeat the genocidal chants and the prayer-like pleas to Abu Obeida. Assault the opposition. Physically prevent Jews from accessing public spaces. March aggressively on people’s homes. Encourage random acts of violence against Jews anywhere and everywhere. Close educational opportunities to dissenters. Take hostages if necessary. Destroy people’s property. Seek to force Jewish businesses to close, even temporarily. Ruin careers.
Forget being on the other side from this crew, politically. What is the effect on aspiring Democratic activists? If you are told to ban the Star of David from the Dyke March, you are made to understand that you will not be considered an ally of LGBT unless you first shed any sign of Jewishness.
If your climate-change priestess wears a keffiyeh and demands you menace a Jewish performer, then that’s what you’ll do. If your public-gardening co-op requires a pledge of anti-Zionism before you can water the flowers, well, can’t let the flowers die.
These are actual real-life cases, and as far as the Gaza ideologists are concerned, the sillier the better. The reason your astronomy TA at Columbia instructs you to think of Gaza when you gaze at the night stars is because you’re being trained to think of Gaza before you think.
So is everyone in the Democratic Party orbit really obsessed with Gaza? No. Whether that’s the good news or the bad news depends on the party’s commitment to asserting its own authority and keeping its own gates. If the progressive activist wing of the party succeeds in making “Gaza” a blood oath to get in the door, then it doesn’t matter if the individual members are passionate about it. They might be passionate about climate change or paid family leave, but if they can’t join those clubs without professing loyalty to Gaza, then Gaza becomes the most important issue by default.
This is also the reason behind one of the pro-Israel world’s great frustrations. Every few years, Hamas starts a new war. And each time, there is a whole new cast of useful idiots in the West that appear to have been born yesterday. Somehow, both traditional media and social media are filled with Hamas windup toys. I don’t mean the bots—I mean the people who might as well be bots. The talking points are the same; the mindless receptacles are different.
Where is this lemming farm? How is it that the enemies of the West always appear to be buying in bulk?
The answer has something to do with the DNC’s gatekeeping problem. Those who feel strongly about Gaza don’t want everyone else to care about Gaza nearly as much. They just want everyone to be required to say they care. They want pliancy, not passion. That’s how their numbers balloon. And it’s up to people like Ken Martin to stop the anti-Zionist inflation over which he is currently presiding.
