Why does the GOP need to step up and stop the bloodshed? The Las Vegas event on Saturday featured a call on Israel and the fate of the Palestinians
Debates over Israel and the fate of the Palestinians have divided college campuses for decades, though never quite on this scale: violent threats against Jewish students, huge pro-Palestinian protests, doxxing campaigns sponsored by outside conservative groups and Jewish donors pulling major contributions.
The GOP has made these episodes part of a larger battle over education that has led to warnings of liberal indoctrination in schools and has made the party even more so since the beginning of the year.
The message has unified broad parts of the party, including socially conservative grass-roots activists who are focused on issues like school curriculums and so-called parents’ rights, evangelical voters driven by their faith to support Israel, and the highest-ranking members of the party establishment.
Republican presidential candidates criticized universities at an event hosted by the Republican Jewish Coalition last Saturday in Las Vegas.
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida devoted a large portion of his address on Saturday to what he called the “appalling environment” at American universities, saying that diversity, equity and inclusion programs had fueled discrimination. “That’s anti-Israel, it’s anti-Jewish 100 percent if you take to that to the logical conclusion,” he said.
Matan Arad-Neeman, the group’s spokesman, explained why they were there while singing a call andresponse of “cease-fire now” and “not in our name”.
“We’ve only seen — what is it — 17 members of Congress so far call for a cease-fire. He said that he was grateful for their moral courage. The rest of Congress needs to step up and stop the bloodshed.
U.S.-Israel Relations in the Middle East: The Dialogue between the Left and the Palestinians, and How Israelis Affect the Left
Democrats sympathized with the Palestinians more than Israelis, for the first time in more than two decades, according to Gallup. About half of Democrats said their sympathies are more with Palestinians, compared to about 4 in 10 who said their sympathies are more with the Israelis. It has been decades in the making.
“In the 1970s you see the emergence of a real special relationship there, where the United States gives Israel quite generous support and to a large extent gives it unconditionally,” explained Stephen Walt, professor of international relations at Harvard’s Kennedy School.
Since then, American leaders of both parties have maintained that special relationship. Proponents have argued it’s strategically important to have a strong democratic ally in the Middle East.
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, which Walt co-authored, was criticized for it’s views on U.S.-Israel ties, but he points out that pro- Israel groups are a factor in the alliance. Most notable among those groups is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, and Walt says that the influence is asymmetrical.
“There’s hardly any countervailing forces on the other side,” he said. There are some pro-Palestinian groups, but they aren’t as influential as they could be.
For one thing, the behavior of Israeli leaders can push away American voters — like the friction between Israel’s conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-President Barack Obama.
Israel has had a right-leaning prime minister for most of the last 30 years and this could have made some Democrats less willing to support the country.
“These are the youngsters on campus who are protesting against the war,” said Osamah Khalil, professor of history at Syracuse University. “And then some of them start to look at Israel’s role in the Middle East and say, are we seeing kind of the same dynamic here about U.S. foreign policy?”
That view by no means represents progressives as a whole. Mellman is blunt about why the left has a split, he thinks they need to be better educated.
He said critics misunderstand the victims and oppressors when they say the rights of people in Gaza have been abrogated by Hamas.
“Young Americans can see the parallels between the situation of the Palestinians and the treatment of minorities in other countries”, he said.
Some progressives have long drawn those parallels, particularly in some communities of color — for example, in Black Lives Matter’s years-long support for pro-Palestinian causes.
“Yes, there are some prominent voices in the Democratic Party, in the so-called progressive movement — AOC [New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez], [Minnesota Rep.] Ilhan Omar, [Michigan Rep.] Rashida Talib — but they’re still quite a small minority within the party,” he said.
The United States and Israel haven’t ceased to protect itself, but it has taken a toll on the crisis in Middle East and Middle East
“I think so many young people have seen decades of U.S. and Israeli policy of just maintaining the system of apartheid fail,” he said. It’s clear that I’m an Israeli-American, it hasn’t kept my family safer.
President Biden has continued to walk a fine line on the conflict, saying Israel has the right to defend itself, but also pushing for more aid for the Palestinians, and for Israel to protect civilians.