2 NY Dems draw redline over Israel

WASHINGTON —Two of New York’s most prominent Democrats — one a middle-of-the-road establishment leader, the other a far-left Progressive — told the AIPAC Policy Conference at the Walter E. White Convention Center this week that they were in Israel’s corner and intended to stay there.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and New York City Mayor Bill deBlasio drew a red line that reflected what they described as absolute personal commitments to the Jewish state.

“America, our good and Progressive America, must always protect the state of Israel,” deBlasio said at Monday morning’s plenary session.

Schumer concluded Monday night’s session by vowing that “as long as Hashem breathes air into my lungs … we will fight to protect the Jewish people here in America and in the state of Israel.”

Both men echoed a theme heard frequently at the three-day AIPAC event, attended by around 18,000 delegates from throughout the country, that support for Israel needed to remain bipartisan — even as the Donald Trump Republican presidency has been viewed by some as uncommonly supportive of Israel and as some Democrats, including three freshmen members of Congress, voice anti-Israel or anti-Semitic sentiments or both.

Several speakers sought to highlight Democratic support both for Israel and the fight against anti-Semitism.

“By the way,” Steny Hoyer, the Democratic House Majority Leader, said on Sunday, “there are 62 freshman Democrats — you hear me? Sixty-two. Not three.”

“I am not Jewish, nor do I represent a large Jewish constituency,” Hoyer said. “I’m an American that believes passionately in the idea of Israel … I stand with Israel proudly and unapologetically.”

In an implicit reference to Minnesota freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar, who circulated an old anti-Semitic trope that American Jews are guilty of dual loyalty, he added: “When someone accuses American supporters [of Israel] of dual loyalty I say ‘accuse me’.”

“Plain and simple, the Democratic Party supports Israel and we will continue to do so,” Schumer said.

deBlasio was at AIPAC “to make a simple, clear, Progressive case for the state of Israel.”

“Progressives fight oppression. Progressives shelter those in danger. We embrace inclusion,” he said. “When I’m in Israel. I see a multi-racial democracy. I see universal healthcare, free college, a strong labor movement. … Israel at its core is there to shelter an oppressed people.”

deBlasio conceded that “as a Progressive I have some real disagreements with the current Israeli government — but that does not detract, it cannot detract, from the requirement that Israel must be defended.”

Both men pointedly attacked the Boycott Disinvestment and Sanctions movement and the increasingly frequent — and sometimes violent — expressions of anti-Semitism in America and around the world.

Schumer brought his audience to its feet as he intoned, “When we see or hear anti-Semitism, we have a solemn obligation not to hold our tongues or parse our language, but call it out with courage, with clarity.”

Saying that “it has become too prevalent in our politics to identify anti-Semitism only when it comes from political opponents,” Schumer made apparent references to both Omar and Trump when he declared: “When someone names only prominent Jews as trying to buy or steal our elections, we must call it out. When someone says that being Jewish and supporting Israel means you’re not loyal to America, we must call it out. When someone looks at a Neo-Nazi rally and sees some very fine people among its company, we must call it out. When someone suggests that money drives support for Israel, we must call it out.”

“Never again means we must never forget the horrifying cost humanity has paid for anti-Semitism,” deBlasio said. “We must never tolerate indifference and complacency with their lethal consequences. We must never listen to those who tell us we no longer need to worry.”

deBlasio said “I deeply oppose” BDS as “contrary to the Progressive imperative to protect all oppressed people everywhere and always. … It affronts the very notion of Israel as a guaranteed refuge for the Jewish people.”

Schumer recalled how boycotts were used as a weapon against the Jewish state both before and after its reestablishment in 1948. He quoted the BDS movement’s founder, Omar Barghouti, as saying, “We oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine” and that Jews “are not a people.”

Speaking just hours after Hamas rockets struck an area near Tel Aviv, Schumer emphasized that “Israel has every right to respond just as any other nation, including our own would.”

“Too many of our younger generation don’t have the same understanding of the threats facing Israel as my generation did,” he said. “They don’t know that as long as Israel has existed, she has had to defend herself from enemies who seek to wipe her off the map. That’s a fundamental problem we must confront head-on.”

Democratic New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez return to the theme of bipartisanship in remarks that closed the conference on Tuesday.

“If we want to sustain that bipartisan support in the 21st century, we must let no one use anti-Semitism or the U.S.-Israel relationship as partisan cudgels, he said. “These days, when it seems like bipartisanship is in short supply, the fact remains that we have always stood united behind Israel’s right to self-defense always.