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July 12, 2026
Key Developments and What We're Discussing Today:
- Democrats successfully pressured Graham Platner, Eric Swallel, and Al Franken to step down. Republicans are fine with Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Brett Kavanaugh, all of whom are still in office.
- The Democratic Socialists of America are not the future of the Democratic Party. Even if DSA members win every competitive primary they’re in for the rest of this cycle, they’d represent less than 5% of the Democratic U.S. House caucus.
- Support for Israel is slipping in both parties. It's not because of antisemitism. Antisemitism undoubtedly is a factor for some Americans, but antisemitism has always been here. What has changed is the policies of Israel's government. That, coupled with a backfire effect against the unquestioning support for Israel, right or wrong, that has characterized American foreign policy for decades, is the problem.
- The solution is a new style of pro-Israel advocacy that combines support for Israel with honest acknowledgement of which U.S. and Israeli policies must change, backed by credible proposals to get there. Rahm Emanuel's speech at Tel Aviv University last week was a good start.
- Thanks to everyone who reached out last week.
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Friends,
Two words summarize the difference between Democrats and Republicans: Graham Platner. Platner withdrew from the Maine Senate election after Democrats ranging from Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani to Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand called for Platner to step down following credible allegations of rape.
Republicans nominated Donald Trump for the presidency three times. Wikipedia documents accusations from at least 28 women "of various acts of sexual misconduct, including rape, sex with minors, sexual assault, physical abuse, kissing and groping without consent, looking under women's skirts, and walking in on naked pageant contestants." Remember the Epstein Files?
Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider overturning a federal jury's 2023 unanimous verdict that Trump was liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll. Republicans remain silent.
Platner has not been found liable for sexual assault in a court of law. Democrats called for him to step down.
To my knowledge, Trump does not have any tattoos. He does have a long record of antisemitism that he added to on July 2, when he packed several antisemitic assumptions into one sentence. His record on antisemitism was not disqualifying. Republicans nominated him three times for president.
I acknowledged in my June 14 newsletter that there might be revelations about Platner yet to come and that "we should make decisions based on what we know and, if appropriate, change our minds based on new information." We now have new information. We changed our minds.
I also wrote that if Platner "were guilty of sexual assault, I would hope that he'd be arrested and tried in court, and if not, it would be incumbent upon all of us to force him out (we pushed Franken out for far less). After all, we are not Republicans." Democrats forced him out.
Some previous allegations against Platner were misguided or wrong. Not this latest allegation. He is no longer the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in Maine.
Donald Trump is still the leader of the Republican Party and the President of the United States. Trump appointees Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth were all confirmed by the Republican Senate despite allegations of sexual misconduct. Democrats forced Platner, Swallwell, and Franken to step down, Franken for far less than any of the aforementioned men. If you have a moral compass, it should be pointing toward the Democratic Party.
How will DSA affect U.S.-Israel relations? It won't. Here too, we see the difference between Democrats and Republicans. David Roberts notes that "only one party is held to any moral standards. Only one party is asked to ritually reject its most ideological members. Only one party is held collectively responsible for anything any of its activists say."
The Democratic Socialists of America are not the future of the Democratic Party. Their views do not represent the Democratic Party. Some DSA members have won Democratic primaries. Ben Samuels notes that "even if DSA members win every competitive primary they’re in for the rest of this cycle, they’d represent under 5% of the Democratic U.S. House caucus."
Israel has become a lightning rod in a few districts because on one side, groups like AIPAC for years have imposed purity tests and opposed even good friends of Israel such as Tom Malinowski and Daniel Biss.
On the other side, some extreme Democrats consider any support for Israel or Zionism tref. A small handful will win in November.
The problem is that for decades, the mainstream pro-Israel community has pitched a narrative about Israel that cannot stand up to scrutiny: A people without a land returned to a land without a people and repeatedly stretched out its hand in peace, only to be rebuffed and unfairly accused of violating international law. We were afraid to acknowledge any wrongdoing on Israel's part because we thought that doing so would enhance the credibility of Israel's accusers.
That approach backfired. It weakened the case for Israel and produced the backlash we are seeing now: an extreme narrative from the other side that portrays Israel as a cruel, colonial oppressor of a people yearning only to be free. Just as some in the pro-Israel community went so far as to deny the existence of Palestinians as a nation, we are seeing people delegitimizing the national aspirations of Jews and not understanding the need and importance of a Jewish state.
Antisemitism has always been here. Support for Israel is slipping because of the policies of Israel's government and because of a backfire effect against the unquestioning support for Israel, right or wrong, that has characterized American foreign policy for decades.
If support for Israel remained constant within the Jewish community, then the case for antisemitism as a cause of declining support for Israel might be better. But reputable polling repeatedly finds concern within the Jewish community as well.
Most recently, on Friday, JTA reported that a survey released by the Milwaukee Jewish Federation found that 43% of Jewish adults said they identified as Zionist, while 42% said they did not...52% agreed that 'Israel regularly violates the human rights of the Palestinian people.'”
Last week's AP-NORC poll found that more Jewish adults view Zohran Mamdani favorably (44%) than Benjamin Netanyahu (33%).
The solution is not to fight extremism with extremism. The solution is to have enough confidence in our positions to acknowledge Israel's flaws, to acknowledge the legitimate national aspirations of the Palestinians, and to make the case not that Israel can do no wrong, but that a Jewish, democratic State of Israel too reflects legitimate national aspirations.
Supporting liberation movements, whether Jewish or Palestinian, let alone other movements that receive less publicity, is part of what it means to be progressive. Denying the legitimacy of Jewish national aspirations is not progressive. In many instances, it is antisemitic.
Until both sides internalize that seven million Jews and seven million Palestinians who live between the river and the sea are not going anywhere, peace will be impossible.
What I wrote in 2023 remains true today: Palestinians see the rebirth of Israel as a catastrophe, a nakba that conflicted with their national aspirations and led to displacement and worse. Jews see the rebirth of Israel as a modern miracle that realized 2,000 years of national aspirations and provided a needed safe haven from centuries of antisemitic persecution.
Neither side has to give up its narrative or accept the other side's narrative, but both sides must realize that the only path forward, a two-state solution, requires both sides to give up sovereignty over land that they believe should be theirs and both sides to accept that previous sins of the other side may never be fully redressed. And everyone who cares about Israel has a duty to speak up, whether for or against the policies of whatever government is in power.
That’s not everyone’s idea of “pro-Israel,” but it's mine.
What could that mean today? Rahm Emanuel's father was born in Jerusalem and fought in Israel's War of Independence. He served in the Clinton and Obama administrations. He understands foreign policy and is committed to Israel's safety and security. He's not some wild-eyed lefty (not that there's anything wrong with that).
Read the speech Rahm Emanuel gave at Tel Aviv University last week, keeping in mind that you don't have to agree with everything he says about the history of the conflict to agree with his prescription for moving forward.
Along similar lines, Jeremy Ben-Ami urges Democratic leadership to recognize that the politics of Israel inside the Democratic Party have fundamentally changed and to reset both their Middle East policy and their relationship with AIPAC.
Some criticism of AIPAC has antisemitic overtones or worse. No matter how we feel about AIPAC, we must condemn such criticism. Ben-Ami's piece contains not a whiff of antisemitism. Neither does this piece from Adam Jentleson: Just say no to AIPAC.
In Case You Missed It (longer than usual because we may have missed some important items the previous week too):
- Important for understanding disagreements within the Jewish community about antisemitism: Aryeh Tuchman, Director of the Nexus Center for Antisemitism Research, analyzed the Jewish Voters Resource Center's most recent poll, concluding that Jewish Americans are united by a very high level of concern about antisemitism, "but that consensus breaks down along age, denominational, and political lines over where threats originate and how to address them."
Jewish Insider Fail of the Week. This is epic even by JI's low standards. JI "exclusively" reported that "new polling data shows that a sizable majority of Jewish voters disapprove of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s job performance and fear he is pushing the Democratic Party too far to the left." Only readers who got to the eighth paragraph found out that "most of the respondents, 515, were not Jewish, while 99 were Jewish." The same paragraph claimed that the poll's margin of error was 4%, which is mathematically impossible for the Jewish subset. Naturally, JI did not share the methodology. In the pre-Internet days, something like JI would have at least been good for wrapping fish.
Photo of the Week. From the DC Metro, on July 4, the defining photo of Trump's America. Freelance photographer Cheney Orr took the photo.
Social Media of the Week. Jezz, Eddy Elfenbein, Daniel Bral, and Hunter Biden.
Video Clips of the Week. Little Marco (Sitcom Edition), Larry David’s new history show with Rob Reiner as George Washington, and Google's July4th video.
Vintage Music Clip of the Week. I Wanna Be Sedated--Go-Gos.
The Fine Print. Read the fine print before you reply or send me anything.
For those new to this newsletter. This is the newsletter even Republicans have to read. If someone forwarded this newsletter to you, your luck continues. You can subscribe and get it in your inbox every Sunday for free. Just click here.
Be sure to read my posts on distinguishing anti-Zionism from antisemitism, understanding the words Zionism, apartheid, and genocide, how to heal the generational rift on Israel and antisemitism, and the IHRA definition of antisemitism.
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