Could there be a more disingenuous statement than Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer insisting that Republicans are “politicizing” the Gazan conflict and support for Israel? While the Republican Party, and especially Donald Trump as President, have been absolutely steadfast in their support for Israel, Democratic Party support has been equivocal at best, the equivocation highlighted by President Barack Obama’s disastrous deal with Iran returning millions in Iranian assets in exchange for a promise (from one of the most duplicitous regimes on earth) to delay its development of a nuclear bomb. (The most likely recipient of said bomb would be, naturally, Israel.) Iran, as was widely predicted by critics of Obama’s sell-out, used the assets it has to seed terrorist groups in the Middle East, including Hamas.
Although the Biden Administration has dutifully gone through the motions of sending financial and weapons support to the only democracy in the Middle East, it has also been smarting from the clear signs that a large segment of its base sympathizes with the Palestinians, even to the extent of excusing Hamas terror. One of the so-called “battleground” states in the upcoming election, Michigan, has a potentially decisive Muslim population that would be pleased to see a Palestine state extend from the river to the sea. If one would be an eager purchaser of the London Bridge, perhaps one would see no connection between that problem and the ridiculous, self-contradicting decision by Biden (or his puppeteer), announced in the State of the Union message, to go to elaborate lengths to deliver “humanitarian aid” to Gaza. You know: pay for Israeli military attacks on Gaza, pay to help Gaza suffer from those attacks as little as possible. Brilliant! But of course that insane decision has nothing to do with politics—just a desire to undermine Israel’s interests just enough to keep the White House.
Then Schumer decided to give a head-exploding speech on the Senate floor last week blaming Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the lack of a cease fire in the war (which would only serve the ends of Hamas) and calling on the Israel public to vote him out of office. (This is known in Democratic circles as “election interference by a foreign power.”) Schumer also, in a burst of fantasy worthy of H.G. Wells, called Netanyahu an impediment to the possibility of a two-state solution in the future.
What “possibility”? No, the impediment to a two-state solution is reality, as well as the October 7 terrorist attack. There’s never going to be a two-state solution, and unless the Democrats are dumber than I think (which is almost biologically impossible), they have to know this. Nonetheless, they cynically maintain the fiction that suddenly they can make the Middle East all unicorns, Care-Bears and rainbows despite the Palestinian vow to wipe Israel off the map, and Israel’s puzzling objection to allowing that. The Democrats maintain this fiction to appease the kinds of Democrats who helped get poor Claudine Gay dumped as president at Harvard.
But it’s the Republicans who are politicizing support for Israel.
I’m sure it’s just a coinkydink that a group of more than 100 Democratic donors and activists sent a letter this week to President Biden’s campaign warning that progressive anger over Israel’s war in Gaza is “increasing the chances of a Trump victory.” You see, it doesn’t matter to these Machiavellians that supporting Israel unambiguously and completely is the only way to signal support for the “democratic values” that the party claims to hold dear while opposing terrorism, murder, rape and the taking of hostages. The letter , which is incoherent regarding established military operations, concludes with “All indiscriminate bombing and demolition must stop,” though it gives lip-service to the objective of eliminating Hamas. Hamas uses the civilian population as shields and hides in tunnels under civilian structures, including hospitals. There is no way to “discriminate” in attacking Hamas forces in Gaza, and that’s Hamas’s plan. The terrorist group has it wholly within its power to end the civilian casualties by surrendering and returning the hostages; if the war continues and civilians keep dying, that is Hamas’s choice.
The protesting Democratic donors, meanwhile, make it very clear why they want Biden to “change course.” “[V]oters and voters of color … are now questioning whether the DemocraticParty shares their values,” the letter warns. Yes, those values are Marxism, anti-Semitism, the lyrics of “Imagine,” and the wacko belief that the Palestinians are the equivalent of American blacks and Native Americans, with the Jews playing the role of the evil, oppressive whites. “If they stay home or vote for a third-party candidate, there is the very real danger that President Biden will be defeated in November,” the letter continues.
But it’s the Republicans that are politicizing support for Israel.
Another metaphorical shoe dropped in this farce today: 19 Senate Democrats signed a letter calling on Joe Biden to unilaterally declare an intent to recognize Palestine as a sovereign—but non-militarized!– state. Read the letter; note the names. The signatories are truly a rogues gallery of the worst of the worst among Democratic Senators, and signing the letter is signature significance.
The irresponsible letter no less than endorses rewarding Hamas’s shattering of the existing cease-fire with its sneak attack on civilians consisting of mass rape and the murder of hundreds of unarmed Israeli citizens. Oh, the 19 also make “renouncing Hamas” a pre-condition of this boon.
In addition to the letter being unethical and craven, it also is pure posturing. Even these 19 can’t be so brain-dead that they think recognizing a Palestinian state is politically feasible or realistic (Can they be? Maybe Senator Hirono…). The only way to get to a “non-militarized” Gaza and West Bank that ‘renounces’ Hamas would be to have the IDF destroy Hamas, which is what it is trying to do, and what Biden and pro-terrorism, anti-Semitic progressives oppose.
The 19 Senators oppose Israel’s planned Rafah operation, attacking where Hamas has at least four brigades. Hamas has isn’t going to disband, and the Palestinians won’t ask them to. A poll released yesterday from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research shows that support for Hamas has increased in Gaza since October 7. 70% of Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank support the October 7 terrorist atrocities that started the war! They also overwhelmingly reject the imaginary “two-state solution.” They want a one state solution, with no Israel. And we knew that.
Yesterday, Netanyahu gave a closed-door speech to Senate Republicans, because only that party has been consistent and trustworthy in its support of Israel during this crisis. He reaffirmed his determination to continue the war until Hamas surrendered or is destroyed, despite the vacillating Democrats. They refused to receive Netanyahu’s address, saying through a spokesman that “Senator Schumer…does not think these discussions should happen in a partisan manner.”
Oh. Right. Because there is nothing political about the Democrats’ machinations in this matter….
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Ethics Alarms 
“unless the Democrats are dumber than I think (which is almost biologically impossible)“
Far too many Gut Laugh Leader Board entries these days; that one hit the spot!
PWS
Dishonesty, Cowardice, Fantasy and Hypocrisy in the Democrats’ Response to the Hamas-Israel War. Yup.
Then there are folks I respected at one time. Lindsey Graham. Tim Scott (one of the quickest “studies” I have met). Mitch McConnell. On and on. Republicans who have forgotten everything they once (correctly) believed about DJT. Dishonesty, Cowardice, Fantasy, and Hypocrisy.
Ouch! Your descriptors seem to fit politicians in general, with precious few exceptions.
”Could there be a more disingenuous statement than Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer insisting that Republicans are “politicizing” the Gazan conflict and support for Israel? “
This is incredibly stupid. A politician complaining that other politicians are politicizing something that is obviously political.
it kind of reminds me of an exchange from Seinfeld.
Elaine: why is everything a joke to you?
Jerry: I’m a comedian
-Jut
They write: “The crisis has reached an inflection point.” I can only assume what this really means is that it has become clear that Israel is well on its way to meeting its objective, and if Hamas is to be saved to strike at Israel another day, the Biden administration has to intervene now.
If Israel moves on the last Hamas stronghold at Rafah, that’s the end of Hamas as a viable force, and probably the end of the Palestinian Authority. I say no big loss, but if you’re going to snuff the other side completely, you’d better make sure you leave no sparks on the hearth that could flare back up later. This is disturbingly close to ethnic cleansing but unfortunately the Palestinians brought it on themselves. They knew damn well who Hamas was and what they were all about before they put them into power, and they did it anyway. They knew or should have known once they were in, getting them out might be problematic. They knew they might try something like this, and there’s no evidence they tried to stop them.
In fact, I can’t think of any legitimate Palestinian movement or prominent leader who has advocated for peace with Israel. The closest we get is the nonsense about a two-state solution, which isn’t going to happen for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which is no one in the region wants a mini-Iraq or a satellite of Iran that can be used as a jumping-off point for more state terror, or the fantasy that Israel can just step aside, like Helen Thomas said in the on-camera rant that destroyed her good name in the twilight of her career (and which she still defended six months later).
It just might be possible to say that the Palestinian issue is where the left is finally getting its mask ripped away. It’s usually been able to paint its destructive actions in some kind of veneer that most people won’t argue with, which is where we get DEI, but in this case the left is openly siding with a terrorist state against one of only two democracies in the Middle East (if you count Turkey) and America’s only firm ally in the region, plus the state that was created to prevent another Holocaust. Eventually it reaches the point where you ask just what are these people for?
They are for the oppressed minority. When everything is weighed with the eyes of privilege and oppression, it means several things. Whoever is oppressed can do no wrong. Whoever is the oppressor can do no right. No action has an absolute rightness or wrongness to it. It depends entirely on who commits that act, and where it resides in the oppression/privilege hierarchy. Thus you can have some oppressor now become an oppressed tomorrow, or an oppressor in one context be an oppressed in another context. Israel once had a certain amount of oppressed status, but its victories and affluence, especially pitted against the poverty of the Palestinians in general, has flipped their status to oppressor.
What is fascinating, especially after the brief life of the #MeToo movement, is that Hamas’ Oct 7th attack has forced many in the progressive camp to re-evaluate rape, murder, and torture as requiring context to determine whether they are right or wrong actions. It should be that such things are so abhorrent that anyone who commits them automatically (via the cognitive dissonance scale) becomes a villain regardless of class, race, sex, and so on. But the oppressor/privilege scale has so warped everything that now rape, murder, and torture are being raised up on the cognitive dissonance scale because some of the favored oppressed are committing them.
I want to believe that most Israelis are aware that these “demands” are being directed to placating a specific voting minority in the United States: the noisy, pro-terrorist vote that Democrats believe are necessary for Biden’s re-election.
I tweeted Mr Netanyahu to say so. In it, I included a declarative sentence that Hamas must be destroyed, both physically and ideologically.
X decided I was advocating violence and took my Tweet down, giving me the options of deleting the Tweet, changing the Tweet, or appeal X’s decision.
I couldn’t think of a way to make the same statement that advocated the physical & ideological destruction of Hamas that wouldn’t be interpreted as advocating for the destruction of Hamas, so I appealed.
I explained that there was relative peace between Israel & Gaza before Hamas/Acolytes engaged in mass rape, murder, & kidnapping of children & the elderly on October 7th. Hamas knew what would have to follow.
X decided I was still advocating harm.
I absolutely want Israel to destroy enough Palestinians so they’ll stop attacking Israel; nothing else has deterred them. The Democrats have decided that they need the pro-antisemite vote if Orange Hitler is to be kept from the White House.
Perhaps I am naive. I know not to trust casualty figures released by Hamas. I would like to believe that Gazan civilians would disarm Hamas if they connected their hardships as having been caused by Hamas’ belligerence…unless the civilians in Gaza agree with Hamas’ actions.
There’s only one side that can surrender, and it ain’t Israel.