With so much on the line in the Middle East, why have Progressive activists, and some key Democratic Party leaders been so critical against Washington’s key ally in the region?
Iran is on the cusp of becoming a nuclear weapons power. American Military News reports that Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz warned that Tehran is moving rapidly ahead with its nuclear weapons program, in violation of its 2015 Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The U.S. withdrew from the pact in protest over Iran’s persistent violations. Gantz noted that Iran could enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels very shortly. Recently, he pleaded with the United Nations Security Council to take note of the crisis and to respond accordingly.
The Mullahs ruling the Islamic Republic have not been shy about their determination to destroy both Israel and the United States.
Iran’s despicable acts are far more widespread than its atomic weapons drive, but Progressives have not made the terrorist nation the subject of their ire. Rather, they focus on its most immediate target, the nation of Israel. That’s consistent with the anti-Semitism of the American Left.
Jacob Dennen, writing in Digital Commons, reveals that “In recent years, anti-Zionism and anti-Israel rhetoric have become hallmarks of the American Left. Moreover, many on the Left have downplayed or denied the severity of antisemitism.”
From current members of the “Squad,” including congressional members Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, (D-NY) Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Ayanna Pressley (D-Ma), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Corey Bush (D-MO), to the former vice chairman of the Democratic Party Keith Ellison and others, there is a clear anti-Israel and anti-Semitic wing that has emerged within the Democratic Party, a reflection of the growing influence Progressives have on Democrat leaders.
It may go much higher than congressional representatives.
Writing in Newsweek, Bruce Abramson and Jeff Ballabon asked in 2020, “Why Won’t Joe Biden Repudiate Anti-Semitic Democrats?…Anti-Semitism has been on full display among Democratic leaders and left-wing protest groups alike in recent years. Leaders of the Women’s March, for example, proved so undeniably anti-Semitic that even former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz felt compelled to distance herself. Yet those same anti-Semites…were featured speakers at this summer’s Democratic convention. The Women’s March since recruited new leaders—who proved to be just as anti-Semitic…
Black Lives Matter protests have likewise featured anti-Semitic slogans from the beginning. BLM’s official platform accuses Israel of genocide, endorses BDS and expresses such blinding anti-Semitism that even many desperate to support the organization have dissented … These groups form the new base of Biden’s Democratic Party. But the strain of anti-Semitism runs deep. Biden was only the most recent Democratic leader to embrace Al Sharpton, whose anti-Semitic rhetoric led to the 1991 Crown Heights pogrom and the 1995 Freddy’s Fashion Mart massacre. Louis Farrakhan is rapidly becoming acceptable among the Democratic mainstream. In 2008, the Obama campaign paid to bury a then-recent photo of their candidate with Farrakhan. Today, New Jersey Sen. Corey Booker expresses a willingness to meet him. Last month, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris ran to meet and praise known Farrakhan supporter Jacob Blake, Sr.”
A Gatestone Institute study, written by Alan M. Dershowitz, reviewed the effort by the Squad, who have outsized influence on the Democratic Party, and discussed that group’s efforts to eliminate funding for the “Iron Dome” project, a purely defensive system that seeks to protect Israeli civilians from terrorist missile attacks. Its technology has far-reaching uses for the U.S. as well. Dershowitz writes: “The time has come, indeed it is long past, for the Democratic leadership to stand strong against the anti-American, anti-Israel and anti-decency squalid Squad. The leadership can no longer stand idly by the bigotry of their members. If they persist in tolerating the intolerable, they will lose the support of the all-important mainstream voters.”
