It’s sort of odd that the main fault line in the Democratic Party today, or at least the one felt most intensely, isn’t about a domestic conflict but rather a foreign one. The Gaza war isn’t strictly a “distant” conflict since we’re so directly implicated. Speaking for myself at least, it doesn’t feel distant. But since I study the Middle East (and because I’m originally from it) presumably I feel differently about it for those reasons. We are all products of our contexts.
But, still, it’s telling. Look at the issues roiling college campuses. They’re not longer about BLM, gender, the police, or whatever else.
has written a series of excellent pieces on this. They’re about Palestine.That young progressives have elevated the Palestinian cause above many other causes is a fascinating shift, and since young progressives eventually become less young, this will likely be felt in the culture in a number of anticipated (and unanticipated) ways.
This is the divide at the heart of the Democratic Party.
My new Washington Post column [free link]—also available today in print for traditionalists—explores the nature of the these divisions, which came to a head in Saturday’s congressional vote on military aid to Israel. On Saturday, the vast majority of Democrats voted to give Israel a blank check—despite the fact that 75 percent of Democrats oppose the war. In other words, there is a massive disconnect between the party leadership and base. For the piece, I spoke to four of congresspeople leading the "no" vote—Reps. Ro Khanna, Joaquin Castro, Pramila Jayapal, and Becca Balint.
For some time, I’ve been preoccupied with futility and lost causes. That’s the cost of doing business when it comes to all things Middle East. So, I asked them: what does it say when only 37 Democrats are willing to vote for something that’s so unpopular with their own members and constituents?
Not everything is “useful.” Not everything leads to results, particularly when the results that matter most tend to unfold over years if not decades. That is why it is important to “set a marker,” something which I discussed in my recent
essay:This is what we do. We set markers. We register our discontent and sometimes even our anger. We have no idea whether what we do and say will have any significant effect, but we do know what we say will be heard by at least some people. It can be a few people, it can be dozens of people, or it can be thousands. Regardless, the people who will have heard us will know that a marker has been set, a sign along the path. Is that enough? I don’t know. But it’s the least we can do. Sometimes, it’s the most we can do.
I’m not sure if that qualifies as a call-to-arms, but hopefully it qualifies as something.
Meh. It is just "radical chic" revisited. Palestine is just the latest fashionable cause for far-left radicals. What this latest war has revealed is the anti-Israel and anti-jewish sentiment that seems to have been there on far left for some time now. And I do not think the radicals will ever exert dominance over the left. They make a lot of noise and get a lot of attention periodically. That is all.