The North Carolina Democratic Party on Saturday approved a resolution that calls for the federal government to impose an arms embargo on Israel, accusing the Jewish state of using U.S. military aid to commit genocide.
The resolution—the first of its kind passed by a state Democratic Party—says that U.S. “military resources that have been made available to Israel through annual and emergency military aid have been used to commit the crime of genocide and other war crimes,” according to WFAE. As a result, the resolution states, “the North Carolina Democratic Party supports an immediate embargo on all military aid, weapons shipments and military logistical support to Israel.”
Anti-Semitic incidents have surged in the United States following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel. In early June, illegal immigrant Mohamed Soliman attacked peaceful pro-Israel demonstrators in Boulder, Colo., with Molotov cocktails and a makeshift flamethrower, injuring eight victims, including a Holocaust survivor, resulting in at least one death. Just weeks earlier, anti-Israel radical Elias Rodriguez murdered two Israeli embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C.
Zohran Mamdani, a socialist with a history of anti-Semitic rhetoric, last week won the Democratic primary in New York City’s mayoral race. Mamdani earlier this month defended the phrase “globalize the intifada,” a popular chant at anti-Israel protests that calls for violence against Jews worldwide. He has refused to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist, expressed support for the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, and declared that, if elected mayor, he will not visit the Jewish state.
The North Carolina Democratic Party’s Saturday resolution has sparked backlash from Jewish Democrats. The party’s Jewish Caucus called the embargo measure “troubling,” with caucus president Lisa Jewel warning that the resolution would “result in harm to our friends and family” and alienate Jewish voters, according to the News & Observer.
The group Democratic Majority for Israel condemned the measure ahead of the vote. Former congresswoman Kathy Manning (D., N.C.), who chairs the group’s board of directors, accused state party leaders Anderson Clayton and Jonah Garson of continuing to “tolerate extreme anti-Israel rhetoric and antisemitism from within the party,” WFAE reported.
The North Carolina Republican Party has also criticized the resolution, saying that Democrats are “building a constituency of antisemitism,” according to the News & Observer.
