Pro-Israel Lobby Helps Save Democrats, and U.S., from Far Left

Plus, Revel and Uber; “positive-sum society“

The pro-Israel lobby is “the biggest … force for moderation in politics right now,“ Josh Kraushaar writes for The Liberal Patriot, examining how, by effectively backing moderate Democrats against far-left anti-Israel candidates and also taking on Republican extremists, the Israel advocacy group is also strengthening more centrist candidates overall.

The flip side of this is the criticism by Senator Bernie Sanders that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and allied groups aren’t advocating for Israel but rather are, as Sanders put it, trying, “to create a two-party system, Democrats and Republicans, in which both parties are responsive to the needs of corporate America and the billionaire class.” Sanders thinks this is a problem. The rest of it might find it reassuring to have both major political parties in favor of free enterprise.

Whether you look at it the way Kraushaar does in “How the Pro-Israel Community Fights Extremism in Both Parties” or the way Sanders does, it’s hard to avoid the reality that, especially on the left, the candidates that are most hostile to Israel are also hostile to capitalism and to defense spending in general and tend to be the ones who want the highest taxes and the most government regulation and non-defense spending. Think of “The Squad,” or the Democratic Socialists of America.

One question is why it’s fallen to the pro-Israel lobby to do this political work rather than a lobby representing corporate America or the defense industry or more general common-sense centrism. The Democratic Leadership Council worked for a while to tug the Democrats toward the center, and it helped to get Bill Clinton nominated and elected. 

Kraushaar doesn’t state it this way, but one way to summarize his point is that the pro-Israel lobby is, somewhat thanklessly, doing the work that the DLC used to do. Even the DLC at its peak rarely went so far as launching and winning primary challenges against incumbents, which is difficult to do successfully. 

The pro-Israel people will say they are happy to have pro-Israel progressives and pro-Israel conservative Republicans, and that is true, up to a point, but the reality is also that if you are trying to unseat an anti-Israel extremist, having a candidate who isn’t extreme on other issues can also be practically useful in winning broad support from voters. Those voters may not be super-concerned about the Middle East or the U.S.-Israel relationship, but they don’t want a candidate who is against free enterprise and America, either.