A time of reckoning

Much is being made of the probable consequences of Trump’s Iran war for the US economy and the midterm elections. And “it’s the economy, stupid” still describes the dominant consideration in the minds of American voters.

But to the extent that foreign policy affects the ballot box, the fact that Trump’s invasion is a proxy war for the Netanyahu regime in Israel could also be a factor in November. Here, the distinction seems less along party lines than the willingness of candidates to apply the standard of national interest to military intervention.

Both major parties in America have mostly stood by Israel, even as its policy of violent apartheid against Palestinians has intensified. As Democrats try to figure out how to exploit the disaster that the Trump GOP has become, they’ll need to come clean on the blank-check policy towards Israel.

“PARTY OFFICIALS TOLD ME they think Democratic voters will be motivated in the upcoming elections to back candidates who feel authentic—candidates who seem like independent thinkers unafraid to say what they truly believe. Following Joe Biden’s presidency, being critical of Israel is increasingly viewed as a way to demonstrate independence and regain voter trust that deteriorated under Biden. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who has been outspoken about Israel’s human rights violations, has predicted that the nature of the U.S. relationship with Israel will be a “defining moral issue for our party and nation in 2026 and 2028.”

 

“It’s not just a debate over Gaza or Palestine and it’s more than just a debate about foreign policy. It is a bigger debate about how America acts in the world. But it’s also a question of ‘Can we trust our leaders?,’” said Matt Duss, a former foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and executive vice president at the progressive think tank Center for International Policy. “When any candidate is running for office and they’re telling you, ‘Here’s what I’m going to do for you,’ but then when they ask about this one issue they revert to these same bullshit talking points—that seriously undermines their credibility. I think that’s what it did for Harris. And I think the reverse is true for Mamdani.”

 

“It really has become a litmus-test issue,” Duss added. “There’s still a lot of very justifiable anger on the part of progressive Democrats who felt that they were just completely gaslit and lied to by the Biden administration.”

*snip*

“When I interviewed Newsom last month, he attributed Kamala Harris’s 2024 loss in part to the party’s support of Israel. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz told the Washington Post last year that the party’s inability to address the “angst over Gaza” contributed to Trump’s win. And in her book about the 2024 campaign, Harris said that Biden’s poor polling was due in part to his “perceived blank check to Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza” and said that his remarks about Palestinians “came off as inadequate and forced.”

“It’s an undeniable fact that this hurt us,” a former senior adviser on the Harris campaign told me. “Was it the primary reason we lost? No. But the emotions were real and we didn’t do enough to show our voters that they could trust us on it.”

All signs point to a disaster for the US economy come November. But many Americans will be asking how we got here and who can we trust to fix it. Part of that trust will come from acknowledging the role played by blindly tethering US policy to Israeli government policy and demanding change and accountability.

https://outlook.office365.com/mail/inbox/id/AAQkAGM5OWZkNTIzLTg2MjktNGNlZS04ZGM5LTYyYWM4MDFiYjhhNgAQAOEo4jmSQGhLgHhK7XILwBg%3D 

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