The Israel-Hamas war revealed rifts within the Democratic Party, which the Republican Party (GOP) tried to exploit, though with relatively little success for the time being.
Biden, the face of support for Israel in a divided Democratic Party
Since October 7, President Joe Biden has shown nearly unwavering support for Israel, displaying genuine empathy while providing almost unlimited aid and personally engaging on the hostage issue. He has thus become the target of anger from pro-Palestinian activists more than his administration or Kamala Harris. “Genocide Joe” has become a popular slogan during protests against Israel.
During the Democratic primary, the “Uncommitted” movement achieved notable symbolic successes in key states like Wisconsin and Michigan, using their vote to express their dissatisfaction with Biden and his policies. Biden’s drop in polls among young people and minorities is partly due to his stance on Israel, although the extent of this influence is not quantifiable. His decision not to run has largely defused this issue, though it has not erased it. Kamala Harris is not seen as embodying this policy, even though she supports it. However, this hasn’t stopped the Republican Party from trying to fan the flames, seeing this issue as a potentially winning theme.
Israel, a theme exploited by the GOP
The images of college campuses occupied by pro-Palestinian activists, with sometimes anti-Semitic rhetoric, have been a windfall for Republicans. They could point to the endemic anti-Semitism of the progressive youth on East and West Coast campuses, long criticized by the party as symbols of disconnected elites and link it to the Democratic Party in their denunciations.
The disastrous hearing of three university presidents, all of whom have since resigned, allowed Republican Representative Elise Stefanik to lambast progressive thought, far beyond the sometimes outlandish and disconnected responses of these presidents, and use it more broadly in the ongoing culture war between conservatives and progressives.
The Republican Party could thus use images of the campus protests and these hearings to criticize the Democratic Party’s left wing, which they claimed had pushed the party to become anti-Israel. They could contrast the Democrats with themselves, especially Trump, who had once been described by Netanyahu as “the best friend Israel ever had in the White House,” notably due to moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
Beyond the Jewish vote, which is numerically too small to be of real interest (and American Jews tend not to prioritize Israel in their political choices), this pro-Israel stance helps the Republican Party with its Christian evangelical base, which is strongly pro-Israel (particularly the Likud-National Religious faction), as they see the presence of Jews in Israel as a prerequisite for Christ’s return to Earth.
Furthermore, Israel remains widely popular in the U.S., with 64% of Americans holding a favorable opinion of the Israeli people. Thus, it is electorally advantageous to present themselves as the pro-Israel party and highlight the Democratic Party’s shortcomings in this regard. Ideologically and pragmatically, this is why the GOP paints the Democratic Party as “woke,” left-leaning across the board, including on Israel, disconnected from the concerns of the American people, and even anti-Semitic.
It was in this context that Harris’ running mate selection presented a golden opportunity that the Republicans were eager to exploit.
The delicate but well-handled running mate choice by the Democrats
The governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, was the favorite to be Kamala Harris’s running mate. A young, very popular governor from a key, strategically crucial state, he long believed he would be chosen. In the end, it was the governor of another Midwestern state, Minnesota, who was the fortunate one, which was expected to trigger new attacks.
The Republican Party “explained” this choice as a reflection of the Democratic Party’s supposed anti-Israel and anti-Semitic bias, held hostage by its woke left wing. Lamentable attacks indeed targeted Josh Shapiro for his stance on Israel, though his views were nearly identical to those of Tim Walz. The only difference between the two was Shapiro’s Jewish identity. There was thus some anti-Semitism in these accusations, but suggesting that Harris’s decision reflected an anti-Israel or even anti-Semitic bias was disingenuous, serving to fan the flames of a topic that benefits the GOP.
It’s true that Shapiro had spoken more about Israel than Walz, and it’s possible that, among the various criteria considered by Harris, the desire to neutralize the Israel issue played a role, alongside other factors like national political experience (Shapiro’s two years versus Walz’s fifteen), Walz’s background as a rural football coach versus Shapiro’s more conventional profile, which allowed Harris to more effectively target a voter base that had drifted away from the Democratic Party — white working-class voters in the Midwest.
Walz’s energy and the strong unity within the Democratic Party quickly quelled this budding controversy over his selection criteria. For the GOP, another moment presented yet another opportunity, which was again missed…
A convention that avoided pitfalls
Before the start of its Chicago convention, the Democratic Party feared significant disruption from pro-Palestinian activists. The specter of the 1968 convention (also held in Chicago), which was heavily disrupted by anti-Vietnam War protestors, loomed large. That convention showed a city under siege and a divided party, contributing to a narrow victory for Republican Richard Nixon in November of that year.
While pro-Palestinian activists were indeed present, inside and outside the convention, they were fewer in number and less disruptive than expected. The Democratic Party had decided to allow activists into the convention hall but without giving them a platform to speak. This frustrated some activists, but the frustrations were ultimately limited.
The lack of significant disruption was particularly noteworthy and unexpected given that the Democratic Party’s platform remained clearly pro-Israel, continuing the policy pursued by Joe Biden on this issue. Kamala Harris’s speech showed no shift on this highly sensitive topic.
For the Republican Party, the smooth running of the Democratic convention was a major disappointment, as it didn’t allow them to portray a party divided by agitators and veering toward an anti-Israel stance. The crowd chanting “Bring them Home” during the moving speech by the parents of Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin (later killed by Hamas) made it impossible to accuse the party of being anti-Israel. However, this hostage issue would soon offer Republicans a new angle of attack.
The fate of the hostages, a new Republican attack angle
The tragedy of the hostages had long been a point of consensus between Democrats and Republicans, with each convention hosting a family of hostages. However, the execution of six hostages by Hamas changed the dynamic, with Trump seizing on this crime to accuse Biden and Harris of having abandoned Israel and thus caused the hostages’ deaths, joined by two key Republican senators, Tom Cotton and Rick Scott, despite the hostages’ families explicitly asking not to politicize their plight.
This unfair accusation was also a way to side with Netanyahu against Biden, with the Israeli prime minister once again justifying his title as the “MAGA Senator from Jerusalem,” in the words of Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul in New York and senior advisor to Ehud Barak and Shimon Peres, the very Netanyahu that made little effort to hide his desire for a Trump victory in November over Harris.
The GOP capitalized on this accusation of having “abandoned Israel” to point more broadly to the “weakness” of Biden’s foreign policy, doubling down against Kamala Harris, whom they labeled as “hostage to the Squad” and “anti-Israel,” if not outright anti-Semitic. These harsh attacks were central to the Republican Jewish Coalition Convention in Las Vegas in early September, once again underscoring the GOP’s desire to politicize support for Israel to weaken the Democratic Party on this issue.
An alignment of the stars, at least for now
So far, the Republicans’ many accusations and attempts to trip up Harris on the Israel issue have not significantly shaken her campaign. Her rallies have faced little disruption, and few campaign offices have been targeted. Additionally, the numerous outbursts by Trump calling Jewish Democrats disloyal or crazy for voting Democratic (which they have done by 70% for nearly 100 years) make GOP accusations of anti-Semitism in the Democratic Party seem ludicrous, while Kamala Harris’s Jewish husband, Doug Emhoff, remains a popular and friendly face of her campaign.
Biden’s record, and thus Harris’s, makes the accusations of abandoning Israel hard to believe. Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s magic no longer works as it once did, as shown by the much lower American support for his government (41%) compared to the support for the Israeli people more broadly (64%).
Most importantly, the threat posed by Trump seems to be forcing the Democratic Party, and others beyond it, to unite and not allow themselves to be divided on this issue, no matter how important or sensitive it is.
However, this current state of affairs does not mean the issue has disappeared. A regional flare-up, a new intifada, or the return of student protests could bring this issue back to the forefront. But unless Michigan ends up being the decisive state in the election, with only 20,000 votes separating the candidates, Israel will remain just one issue among many in this election that will shape the future of the United States and the world, without severely disrupting the Democratic Party.
Sebastien Levi
