Goy Goes Off On Israel

The Hamsa Flag**

 

 

 

In a recent post here, I argued that the Senate election in Texas is the most significant one this year.  That is not just because it may be the decisive 51st seat for the Democrats to gain a majority, if James Talarico can defeat Ken Paxton+ , but because of the longer-term significance of a long-sought Democratic statewide win in that giant state. What  happens there could have effects that transform the global reality!

There is another election this fall that could have that kind of effect:  it is the Israeli parliamentary election (the Knesset), which is scheduled just a few days before the USA midterm election, on October 27 (though it may come sooner; it is unlikely to be later).  The question before the Israeli electorate is whether the war government of Benyamin Netanyahu will continue. 

There are many international electoral contests to which I pay some attention, to a varying degree.* It is in part because of ties I have in those countries, people I know,  and my recognition that those results may affect them, and partly because I am a citizen of this planet and we are all one race. There can be another reason, though, and that is the effect outside events can have on our own nation, and on our own electoral events. 

I see there to be such an effect between the coming Israeli election and its outcome, and one critical election, in particular.  That is the Senate election in Michigan, a seat currently held by a Democrat, Gary Peters, who is not running for re-election.  The Republican candidate, for once, is not a no-name Trumpist stooge, but a respected Congressman, Mike Rogers, who has served responsibly as head of the Armed Services committee in the House.  

Michigan is accurately considered a swing state that tends slightly toward the Democrats.  The population centers of Detroit and Ann Arbor (U. of Michigan) are strongly Democratic, with most of the rest of the state strongly Republican, and the suburbs around Detroit are usually decisive.  Both Senators are Democratic, as is the outgoing governor, Gretchen Whitmer, who has served two terms and cannot run again.  If the Democrats run a good campaign, they should hold the governor's job and win the Senate race. It is incontrovertible fact that the Michigan seat is not one the Democrats can afford to lose in the effort to gain a majority. 

The danger comes from the likely Democratic Senate nominee, Abdul El-Sayed, who has a primary coming up soon (Aug. 4).  His policies are clearly those of the progressive wing, as opposed somewhat to his two more moderate opponents, Rep. Haley Stevens and Mallory McMorrow, who each have significant support but are seen to be splitting the vote from the party's center.  El-Sayed has run a strong campaign, is viewed as an excellent campaigner in the mold of New York's Zohran Mamdani, and has a similar stance opposing Israel's war policies in the Middle East, in Gaza and in the West Bank.  Polling of statewide Democrats shows El-Sayed with a  small lead over the other two candidates, but with a large undecided number.  I would say that he is likely to win the nomination unless one of the two more moderates pulls out and endorses the other, and maybe even if that happens. 

Michigan has a larger Muslim population than most US states, and that gave El-Sayed a significant base, from which he has successfully expanded, by showing a strong fighting resolve against the Trumpist administration.  All well and good, but there is another constituency that may be heard from, one that could affect the outcome decisively in either direction.  Michigan has a significant Jewish population, also centered around the populated areas, particularly those suburbs--it historically has voted strongly Democratic. 

Heavily involved in this primary is the Israel lobby group AIPAC, and its Political Action Committee (UDP)--they have spent a lot of money already supporting Rep. Stevens.  Although there are other Jewish lobby groups with different stances, AIPAC has the largest funding and is uncritical in its support of Israel, and it punishes heavily those who go against it, and recently, especially against Democrats who do that. Against that, there is broad desire to move away from US' uncritical support for Israel,  providing armaments to it in the wars against Iran, Lebanon, and the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.  In particular, the Netanyahu coalition government in place since 2022 has been ruthless in its desire to harm Gazans, to support Israeli settlers in the West Bank who try to displace Palestinians living there, and in advocating ever harsher pre-emptive attacks on Iran and the Hezbollah in Lebanon--going beyond the aims of defensive purposes.  

The cleavage emerging in the Democratic party over the US-Israel relationship endangers the party's coalition, not just in Michigan but nationally, as is shown for example by the problematic results in New York City's Democratic primaries this week, where an anti-Zionist agitator won nomination for a Congressional seat that is securely Democratic.   Support for Zionism is and has been national policy, but where are the boundaries of Zion?  Are they limited to the UN-approved boundaries of Israel; if so, what about the occupied territories, where Israel's current government shows lack of regard for the Palestinian inhabitants, and a tendency to colonize with Jewish settlers who claim it for a Greater Israel? 

As for the Israeli elections, I find it hard to believe that Israelis will vote to retain Netanyahu as Prime Minister:  it was his government's lax security at the Gaza border which allowed the calamity of October 7, 2022, when criminal elements of Hamas overran the defenses and wreaked murder, rape and abduction on innocent Israeli civilians.  His government has pursued war endlessly since then which, despite the remarkable capabilities of the Israeli Defense Force, has shown time and again that the way toward peace in the region is not to be accomplished solely through military means. In particular, Netanyahu's coalition includes overtly racist far-right elements and rejects negotiation with Palestinians and Iranians.  

Israeli parliamentary elections are free, but complicated:  they have proportional representation with a minimum level of 3.25% vote for representation of parties.  Typically of such systems, there are lots of parties, a dozen or more, that can reach that level, each headed typically by a single prominent figure.  Then, the parties group together to form a governing coalition, an opposition coalition, and, usually, a set of Arab Israeli parties which get some 15-20% of the votes and seats but are not included in either coalition. 

Current polling suggests that neither the current Netanyahu coalition nor the grouping  of opposition parties--who generally support the war effort while opposing Netanyahu's heavy-handed mode of doing it, along with some of its policies favoring the Orthodox and new settlement activity in the West Bank, and alleging corruption-- is likely to come out of the election with a majority.  This means either a stalemate, or a possible coalition with one or more of the fragmented Arab parties, a strategy that was put together by the anti-Netanyahu coalition, somewhat unsuccessfully, prior to the last elections in 2022, when the Netanyahu coalition took power back. 

I do not take sides in primaries outside my own state (of New Mexico), and much less do I try to interfere in the elections of other nations, but I think it is of great importance that Democrats take a view towards the Israeli election that reflects our values and helps to maintain unity.  I don't think it is that hard to enunciate, something like this:  

"We are longtime allies of the state of Israel and support its continued success, but we are not wholly uncritical of its war campaigns.  We advocate for a government there that is peaceful in its intent, while prepared fully to defend itself and its people, and that provides all the residents of the territories it controls with humane treatment and justice.  We do not see that in the current coalition regime."   

If the Israeli election goes badly, in the sense that it would seem Netanyahu will once again somehow fashion a majority to continue his policies of unending war and oppression of Palestinians, that could create a fissure for Democrats in the last stages of this year's critical campaign.  What would likely emerge from that disaster would be a policy to oppose continued arming of Israel, which could be counterproductive,  both to the bilateral relationship and to the party.  Frankly, it would not even change Israel's policy under the circumstances, but it would further isolate Israel and thus make the situation even worse.  Let us hope the opposition wins the election decisively, or finds the means to include some of the Arab parties before or after the election in a way that does not fracture the level of its support and makes it possible for it to govern instead.

+Based on emails I am receiving, there are lots of other candidates for that "honor", including Ohio, Florida, South Carolina, South Dakota, Nebraska, and, of course, Maine. 

* I don't pay much attention to elections like the one upcoming in the Russian Federation, where the results will surely be rigged to show a level of support for the illegal war in Ukraine that is surely not real.  Surprise me, Russia!

**The proposed flag for the concept of one nation combining Israel and Palestine, a radical proposal to be sure, especially since even the chances for "two-state solution" seems now remote in the current political environment in the region.  However, it is one that demography and the arc of justice surely indicates to be some kind of ultimate solution . Let's hope it doesn't take a thousand years!