Democrats face increasing Arab and Muslim voter rejection
One week after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called for “new elections,” calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu an obstacle to peace who has “lost his way,” 19 Democratic Senate colleagues released a letter urging “recognition of a nonmilitarized Palestinian state.”
Schumer, who is Jewish and a consistent supporter of Israel, unleashed a wave of anger from Israeli activists, elected officials, and their US backers who challenged America’s right to tell Israel anything.
The letter proffers Israel’s “full integration into the region,” and eventual US recognition of a “normalized Palestinian state.”
President Joe Biden reversed his stand and announced he would sponsor a watered-down “ceasefire” resolution at the UN Security Council where he has vetoed three more expansive plans.
Why, all of a sudden, after the US has funded, supplied and supported in Gaza one of the worst military assaults on a civilian population in more than a century, is there a push for peace?
The reason is simple: Arab and Muslim American voters and their allies have flexed their muscles. Instead of simply opposing those who oppose Palestinian statehood like Republicans, they are holding the feet of Democrats like Biden and Schumer to the fire because they have failed to fulfill promises of fairness for Palestinian rights.
The letter includes two senators up for re-election in battleground states where Biden and Democrats have faced growing Arab and Muslim voter rejection.
The change is a direct result of Arab and Muslim voters coming together, for the first time, to force Democrats to live up to their so far failed promises supporting Palestinian statehood and rights under the #AbandonBiden movement.
Until now, Democratic politicians like Schumer have had it both ways. They claim to support peace but they have done nothing to achieve it, submitting to Israel’s whims and accepting hundreds of millions of dollars from pro-Israel political action committees under the umbrella of AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
While talking from one side of their mouths about peace, but doing nothing, they have been speaking loudly in Israel’s defense from the other side, providing hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to Israel’s government, money that could better be spent to address growing problems in America like rising healthcare costs, rising crime, low standards of education, and a weakening economy. Netanyahu and the pro-Israel lobby were shocked by both Schumer’s call for new elections, and the letter from the 19 Democratic senators. Republicans and hardline Democrats have introduced restrictions banning funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which is needed to ease growing refugee suffering.
Schumer and the letter reflect a slow awakening of the American public to the brutality of Israel’s carnage in Gaza and how the Netanyahu campaign is laying the groundwork for more reactive violence from the civilian victims.
In the five months following the Hamas attack, Israel’s assault has injured more than 100,000 people, destroyed mosques, churches, schools, hospitals, homes, and businesses and rallied the world against not just Israel but against the US.
The Gaza devastation is so widespread that more than 1.5 million Palestinians have been forced to flee their destroyed homes and neighborhoods to a tightly packed area near Rafah. Arabs, Muslims, and supporters of the #AbandonBiden movement are the catalyst for these seismic changes in Democratic Party politics.
As Biden stumbles toward a rematch with former President Donald Trump, Arabs and Muslims have withheld their support for him, negating narrow vote margins he won over Trump in 2020 in a dozen state primary elections. Even if this results in Republicans returning to power, #AbandonBiden activists believe they must show Democrats their power and that they can no longer be ignored as they have been. If the #AbandonBiden sustains its antiBiden voting, Biden most likely will lose his bid for the presidency and return America to right-wing Republican fanaticism.
Activists say it is easier to confront rightwing Republican fanaticism than to be stabbed in the back by a “smiling” Democrat. They argue, “Four years of Trump’s incendiary rhetoric doesn’t even come close to the five months of carnage by Biden in Gaza.” Israelis may have it easier under Republicans but they have gotten everything they have ever wanted from Democrats. But they haven’t held back their anger with Schumer. Leaders of the extremist Israeli Likud Party, founded by Menachem Begin, now Netanyahu’s base, said Israel “is not a banana republic.” He said Americans are “expected to respect Israel’s elected government and not undermine it.”
The American Jewish Committee, which has provided cover for Israel’s Gaza carnage, said after Schumer’s speech: “Israel is a sovereign democracy in the midst of a war of selfdefense against a terrorist organization bent on massacring Jews and destroying Israel.” AIPAC said that Israel “decides for itself when elections are held and chooses its own leaders.” Republicans like former Trump spokesman Ari Fleischer called Schumer’s comments
“one of the most disgusting speeches ever given in the Senate.”
Journalists who have asserted “objectivity” have stepped out to pillory Schumer and the Democrats.
Mark Knoller, former CBS news correspondent, often criticized for his one-sided pro-Israel reports, asked: “Would Schumer still feel that way if his relatives were still held by Hamas?” Columnist and author David Marcus asked: “Why on earth would any nation want to be an ally of the US today?”
Pro-Israel media, including Fox News columnist Marc Thiessen and New York Post columnist John Podhoretz, attacked Schumer, as did Israeli columnist Caroline Glick, who called Schumer “a total disgrace … not fit to lead Israel, not fit to lead the Senate” and someone who “isn’t fit to lead a synagogue’s men’s club.” What #AbandonBiden has done is pull the covers off a hypocrisy in which Israel has been allowed to meddle in American politics, while discouraging Americans, who empower Israel, from challenging Israel’s politics.
Israel has had both Republicans and Democrats in a political headlock. It’s good to see one side finally trying to break free.