cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/42784
In a historic vote, 75% of Senate Democrats backed an effort to block weapons to Israel. The resolutions failed, but the vote was the latest sign of Democrats’ growing consensus against aid to Israel, as support for the country hits an all-time low.
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This is the typical ‘rotating villain’ play from the Democrats. The party instructs certain Democrats to vote against the bill, while the majority vote for the bill, to give the illusion that they actually wanted it to pass. If the party wanted to block arms to Israel, it would issue real consequences for party members who voted against the bill.
Dems don’t hold majority right now so even if 100% of them voted for the arms embargo it still would not pass. Those 25% of Dems who voted against it are real true blue Zionists speaking their truth. If anything this is the opposite of rotating villain, rotating hero - where Zionist Dems get to pretend they are the good guys while knowing there’s no chance of it passing. Of those 75% of Democrat Senators that voted for this, probably half would never have done so of it has a chance of passing
They need to maintain the perspective that “this is a nuanced issue.” Otherwise they’d have to have principles in the long run.
If it was just a party line vote then that would make Republicans look bad to their own electoral base, and Democrats are also interested in protecting the Republican party from backlash and ensuring they don’t get blown out too badly in the Midterms.
The worst-case scenario for Dems is that they win too much during the Midterms and have to actually do stuff again.
No it wouldn’t, something like 85%+ of Republicans support Israel and believe arabs and muslims are terrorists. The loud rightwing fringe minority faction composed of Tucker and Jones are just that, a loud minority without any real power. Republican voters love war, they love genocide, don’t let them pretend otherwise it’s bullshit. The only demographic that could swap from Republican to Democrat are centrist neocons who also love Israel, war and genocide. The tucker/jones types have nowhere to else to go, they aren’t going to go to Democrats.
We have not really had a reckoning with the fact that the most fascistic, murderous, warmonger and zionist political group are the mainstream “center”. It’s the respectable Classical Liberals.
I’m not seeing 85% - I’m seeing 38% of Republicans want the US to take neither side, 62% believe Israel has a positive role in the Middle East, and the closest to your number is the 72% support military aid for Israel (which I suspect is just Republicans supporting military Keynesianism). It’s also falling thanks to the war with Iran and rising gas prices (because Republicans don’t care about Palestinians, but they absolutely care about being unable to afford to fill their trucks).
As for it being the center, not really? Independents are actually turning on Israel, it’s a 50/50 issue for them.
Democrats need to make sure there is no alternative.
I think it’s still notable that we’re seeing pro-israel politics having to be a rotating villain thing rather than a “fuck you, we support israel no matter what” thing, its becoming increasingly poisonous to support Israel at all