Last week, Maine\u2019s Democratic governor, Janet Mills, suspended her campaign for the Senate. Her exit paves the way for her more progressive rival, the 41-year-old oysterman Graham Platner, an antiwar firebrand who has called for an end to \u201cBenjamin Netanyahu\u2019s war\u201d in Iran and described Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza as a genocide.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the kind of no-nonsense language that the Democratic grassroots have been demanding in recent months. Polling shows that an overwhelming majority of Democratic voters have swung wildly<\/a> against Israel, with younger Independents and Republicans also trending in the same direction. According to one poll<\/a>, only Russia scored worse than Israel when it came to the negative views among young Democrats (even Iran outscored the Jewish state).\u00a0<\/p>\n It would seem, then, that Platner and likeminded progressive office-seekers around the country have hit upon a winning issue. But it\u2019s one thing to adopt more Israel-critical policies in response to popular opinion \u2014 and quite another to transform the party into a singularly Israel-obsessed vehicle: one in which opposition to the Jewish state functions as the main priority, a source of factionalism, and an ideological purity test.\u00a0<\/p>\n That way lies marginalization,\u00a0a fate not unlike that of ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and his Your Party in Britain. This, just when Democrats are poised to re-emerge from the political wilderness amid President Trump\u2019s historic unpopularity and a faltering GOP majority in Congress.<\/p>\n The danger for Democrats doesn\u2019t lie in the shift itself \u2014 a recalibration in America\u2019s relationship with Israel is overdue, as voters across the spectrum are emphatically telling pollsters. The real threat, rather, is in the way an intensified focus on a single foreign-policy issue risks pulling the party off course, leaving it vulnerable to a vocal activist subset that doesn\u2019t necessarily reflect broader public opinion on other questions.\u00a0<\/p>\n Corbyn offers an instructive cautionary tale. After being expelled from Labour in 2024, the 76-year-old socialist went on to co-found a Left-wing breakaway party the following year. Your Party \u2014 the name itself was a magnet for ridicule \u2014 promised to be everything that Labour wasn\u2019t: an unapologetically socialist outfit that would tax the rich, nationalize utilities, defend the National Health Service against privatization, and, most importantly, take a strong stance against Israel. During its first week, the party attracted hundreds of thousands<\/a> of voters disillusioned by the Starmer government, as well as a former Labour member of Parliament and four independent Muslim MPs who were elected on pro-Gaza platforms.\u00a0<\/p>\n Yet within days, problems emerged. Before it had even officially launched, a leadership fight between Corbyn and another MP resulted in a mini-schism. What was ostensibly a disagreement over the party\u2019s internal structure quickly spilled into a chaotic membership drive, generating as many factions as it did representatives. The bigger problem, though, was the ideological division between its MPs. Unsurprisingly, Your Party\u2019s socially conservative Muslim MPs took a very different view on issues such as gender identity and trans participation in women\u2019s sports, which ultimately contributed to the departure of two MPs.\u00a0<\/p>\n The inherent tension in the \u201crainbow-and-crescent\u201d alliance of progressive activists and Muslim social conservatives is a problem for Democrats, too. Over the last few years, clashes<\/a> between<\/a> Muslim-American parents and local Democratic leaders over school curricula have spilled into courtrooms and onto the streets, largely driven by Muslim opposition to LGBTQ content. For the most part, however, the alliance has been held together by a shared opposition to Israel.<\/p>\n Similarly in Britain, Israel was the centripetal force around which Your Party\u2019s members revolved. Or so they thought. Instead, it turned out to be another source of division. Zara Sultana, Your Party\u2019s erstwhile co-leader, came out as strongly as an anti-Zionist, whereas Corbyn refused to use the term. The result was an ironic dynamic in which Corbyn, long one of Britain\u2019s most prominent critics of Israel, was denounced<\/a> by elements of his own movement for insufficient purity on the issue. Now, the party can barely muster enough candidates to represent it in next month\u2019s local elections.<\/p>\n \u201cLeft-wingers\u2019 competitive signaling on Israel incentivizes candidates to adopt maximalist positions, alienating supporters.\u201d<\/p>\n The United States has a different party and electoral system than Britain\u2019s, but the parallels are clear: Left-wingers\u2019 competitive signaling on Israel incentivizes candidates to adopt maximalist positions, alienating supporters and cannibalizing other issues in the process. In San Francisco\u2019s House race, for example, Scott Wiener, a liberal Zionist, has faced sustained criticism from activists for refusing to describe Israel as an apartheid state or characterize its military campaign as genocide. Several debates were interrupted<\/a> by pro-Palestine hecklers, which ultimately led to Wiener resigning as co-chairman of the state\u2019s Jewish Caucus before leaving it altogether.<\/p>\n It made little difference. Wiener\u2019s progressive rival, Saikat Chakrabarti \u2014 who has embraced the term \u201cgenocide\u201d and called for a ban on both defensive and offensive weapons transfers to Israel \u2014 is within striking distance<\/a> of him in the polls. Meanwhile, in Michigan, Senate candidate Abdul al-Sayed, who has shared a stage with Hasan Piker and talked openly<\/a> about how Israel is \u201cjust as evil as Hamas,\u201d is now tied for first in the polls to secure the party nomination. Similar dynamics have unfolded in Illinois\u2019s and New Jersey\u2019s special elections, too, which became as much a referendum on the Israel lobby as on any local issue.<\/p>\n None of this is to suggest that Democrats should maintain the status quo on Israel. Under Netanyahu, the Jewish state has become more aggressive and unrestrained in its conduct across the Middle East, not bothering with the pretense of a two-state solution. The Jewish state has rarely stopped to weigh even the costs of wielding the power of life and death \u2014 in perpetuity \u2014 over some seven million Palestinians.\u00a0<\/p>\n But, again, there is a difference between treating Israel as one foreign question among many, on one hand, and turning it into an ideological litmus test that supersedes everything else, on the other. This has created a purity spiral in which Democratic candidates across the country are jumping over each other to prove their pro-Palestine credentials \u2014 or at least, to ward off any hint that they are \u201csoft\u201d on the issue. Even Gavin Newsom, ever the tumbleweed in shifting winds of public opinion, went so far as to compare<\/a> Israel to an apartheid state (a remark he later walked back).\u00a0<\/p>\n One major reason for this drastic shift is the rise of independent media. As the influence of traditionally pro-Israel legacy outlets has waned, a new ecosystem of progressive streamers and online platforms has filled the space. These outlets will approvingly repost clips of, for example, Graham Platner calling the US\u2019s relationship with Israel \u201cshameful<\/a>,\u201d while castigating moderate<\/a> Democrats<\/a> for equivocating on the issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n For influencers and outlets like Zeteo, the Young Turks, Majority Support, and Hasan Piker, Israel is a near daily fixation (to say nothing of Tucker Carlson and other podcasters on the Right), which creates what Cass Sunstein and Timur Kuran call an \u201cavailability cascade\u201d: a self-reinforcing feedback loop, in which constant mention of an issue makes it seem more important, urgent, or widespread, thereby further increasing its visibility.<\/p>\n Today, the question of whether Israel is committing genocide has the same political potency (and clippability) as \u201cwhat is a woman?\u201d for progressives and \u201cdid Trump win the 2020 election?\u201d for Republicans. In just the last week, it has been asked of former President Barack Obama<\/a> all the way down to Kennedy scion Jack Schlossberg<\/a> in the New York 12th district contest. And every podcast, speech, and special election primary in which a candidate\u2019s position on Israel determines their standing only reinforces that dynamic at the national level. As a preview of what\u2019s to come, earlier this month, the Democratic National Committee weighed<\/a> a proposal at its spring conference to condemn the \u201cgrowing influence\u201d of money in primary elections, with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee singled out in the debate; the resolution was ultimately rejected. Without any kind of counterweight in the party, expect more resolutions like these to emerge.<\/p>\n In Britain, Your Party\u2019s launch was meant to signal a new moment of unity for Left-wing dissidents from the Labour mainstream. Instead, it exposed how little consensus there was beneath the surface. Democrats should be wary of repeating the same pattern. Primary season is already drifting into an anti-Israel spectacle; if that dynamic accelerates, Democrats risk a Corbyn-style implosion that hands Republicans an unforced advantage in 2028.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week, Maine\u2019s Democratic governor, Janet Mills, suspended her campaign for the Senate. 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