the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Recent polls indicate Democrats are becoming more comfortable holding a skeptical view of Israel. A poll by YouGov for the Economist said just a quarter of Democrats see Israel as an ally, compared to 57 percent of Republicans.
One Democratic House candidate has pledged that she will vote against bills that include aid to Israel, denouncing what she saw as the “injustice” of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. Another wrote that “Israel has hypnotized the world” with its “evil doings.”Still another helped write a scathing book on relations between the United States and Israel, while Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive political star expected to win a House seat in New York, condemned the “occupation of Palestine.”
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., accused Democrats on Sunday of “enabling” anti-Semitism for failing to explicitly condemn recent comments by a freshman Minnesota Democrat, Rep. Ilhan Omar, in a recent congressional vote.Cheney, the third-ranking GOP leader in the House, made her comments during an interview on “Meet the Press” days after the House passed a broad condemnation of anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and other instances of hate. The resolution was criticized by Cheney and other Republicans for not directly singling out Omar.
Some Jewish voters are furious at Democrats’ defense of Rep. Ilhan Omar say they’re done with the party that has held their support for generations.“We felt we had a home there,” said Mark Schwartz, the Democratic deputy mayor of solidly blue Teaneck, NJ. “And now we feel like we have to check our passports.”Jordan Manor of Manhattan, who calls himself a “gay Jewish Israeli-American,” laments, “The party I thought cared about me seems to disregard me when it comes to my Jewish identity.”Mark Dunec, a consultant in Livingston, NJ who ran for Congress as a Democrat in 2014, says, “I’m physically afraid for myself and for my family,” adding, “I see my own party contributing to the rise of anti-Semitism in the United States.”
Fake it until you make it….