Consider This from NPR - What's Behind The Progressive Push To Rethink America's Relationship With Israel

Episode Date: May 24, 2021

For decades, Israel had solid bipartisan support for Israel from Capitol Hill. But progressive congressional Democrats have started to question support for the policies of the Israeli government. Palestinian rights activists also feel tied to the growing power of racial justice movements in the United States. NPR political correspondent Asma Khalid explains. Peter Beinart, editor-at-large of Jewish Currents, says more Americans are hearing Palestinian voices in the media, and some Democrats can now criticize Israel without fear of losing their next election.Additional reporting in this episode comes from NPR's Connor Donevan and Eli Newman with member station WDET.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is what it sounded like outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. last week. Palestine will be free! Palestine will be free! One of many protests in cities around the country, directed not just at the Israeli government. Biden, Harris, you will see! Palestine will be free! But at an American president swept into office on a wave of progressive support. Demonstrators also showed up at a Ford plant in Michigan last week, where President Biden was visiting. So we know that Joe Biden is in the neighborhood right now.

Iman Saleh helped organize the protest. She told one of our reporters that in her activism, she felt ties to the growing power of racial justice movements in the U.S. When we talk about police here and Black lives here, we're also relating that to Palestinian lives in Palestine. We're seeing a lot of the same tactics that they use to oppress the people in these villages or in these cities overseas being used here on the streets of Detroit. Consider this.

Amid a tenuous ceasefire in the conflict between Israel and Hamas, progressive activists are putting new pressure on Democrats to support Palestinians. And that pressure is shifting the conversation. From NPR, I'm Adi Cornish. It's Monday, May 24th. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. What happens after a police officer shoots someone who's unarmed?

For decades in California, internal affairs investigations, how the police police themselves, were secret. Until now. Listen to On Our Watch, a podcast from NPR and KQED. It's Consider This from NPR. American presidents have long supported Israel. Republicans. America's commitment to the security of Israel is ironclad. And Democrats. Israel's legitimate exercise of its right to self-defense.

Israel is a democracy and a friend. And I will always stand up for Israel's right to defend itself. To defend itself. To defend itself. To defend itself when you have thousands of rockets flying into your territory. That last clip from President Joe Biden was from earlier this month. But just last week, as the death toll in Gaza climbed into the hundreds

following 11 days of violence between Israel and Hamas, Biden was asked whether he supported a shift in the U.S. approach. There is no shift in my commitment, my commitment to the security of Israel, period. No shift, not at all. But in Congress, things are shifting. Some Democrats are speaking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

in ways they haven't before, using words like occupation and apartheid. So what's changed? I think one difference is that there is a heightened sensitivity in the media today in the wake of Black Lives Matter and other movements towards questions of representation. Peter Beinart, editor-at-large of Jewish Currents, told me Palestinians have been historically underrepresented in news coverage, but that more recently, news organizations are featuring their voices more.

And when you bring in Palestinian voices, it's very powerful to those Americans who themselves have had the experience of being denied basic rights, because that is the Palestinian experience. But for Democrats in Congress, it's not like they've suddenly discovered the Palestinian experience, Beinart told me. It's that they now feel they can criticize Israel without fear of losing their next election. Every time a democratic politician speaks out on Palestinian rights and sees that they can survive, Rashida Tlaib got re-elected, Ilhan Omar got re-elected, Betty McCollum, who introduced the bill to condition military aid, got re-elected.

Every time someone shows that actually you can do it and your political career can be fine, I think others are more willing to take that step. Israeli politics, you see a rightward shift there in the last decade. How has that affected maybe how Americans view politics from here? I think it has alienated Democrats. Democrats have seen Benjamin Netanyahu, they used to see him as a kind of Israeli version of Dick Cheney or George W. Bush, and now they see him as an Israeli version of Donald Trump. And there are clear ideological similarities. And so I think that has made people being more willing to be critical. That criticism from progressives, it's getting louder. On Monday, more than 500 former Biden

campaign and Democratic Party staffers signed an open letter urging President Biden to do more to protect Palestinians and, quote, hold Israel accountable for its actions. And that kind of pressure could signal a fundamental shift in America's relationship with Israel. NPR political correspondent Asma Khalid took a look at what that means for the Democratic Party. When New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to the House floor last week, she asked a simple but provocative question. President and many other figures this week stated that Israel has a right to self-defense, and this is a sentiment that is echoed across this body. But do Palestinians have a right to survive?

Do we believe that? And if so, we have a responsibility to that as well. Look, when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is staking out her position on this, that's the Overton window shifting before your eyes. Ben Rhodes was a deputy national security advisor under former President Obama. And therefore, it's going to be harder window shifting before your eyes. Ben Rhodes was a deputy national security advisor under former President Obama. And therefore, it's going to be harder to just stick to the old line of

essentially unquestioned support for the policies of the Israeli government. Rhodes says the conversation is different than the last time there was a war in Gaza. It's just simply a fact that there was never this kind of pressure vocally from the left on issues related to Israel during the Obama years. Jeremy Ben-Ami with the liberal Jewish lobby J Street says the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, shifted the terms of the debate. Prime Minister Netanyahu really made the strategic decision for Israel to throw in the country's lot with the Republican Party and with the right wing. Netanyahu famously came to Washington when President Obama was in office. Republicans invited him to address Congress, where he blasted the Iran nuclear deal. We must all stand together to stop Iran's march of conquest, subjugation, and terror.

Democrats say under former President Trump, most issues became more polarized, and Israel was no exception. Ben-Ami says the right tried to box Democrats in. You were either with us or against us, and anybody who supported two states, who recognized Palestinian rights, who wanted peace, was anti-Israel. But the shift isn't just about the politics of Netanyahu and Trump. Progressives in Congress and on the street often compare the Palestinian cause to fights for racial justice in America. That didn't just happen by accident. After the killing of Trayvon Martin, a Black teenager in Florida, Ahmed Abouznaid co-founded a group called Dream Defenders that organizes

Black and Brown communities. In 2012, on our first march, we were marching to Sanford, Florida, where Trayvon was killed. And on that march, I was wearing a keffiyeh, the Palestinian scarf that many rightly identify with the Palestinian struggle. And we had conversations about state-sanctioned violence. Abounade went on to lead four delegations of Black activists to Israel to see how Palestinians live. Activists say social media is also a part of the equation. One of the major things that is different about this moment is access to information. Rana Epting leads the progressive group MoveOn. We're seeing videos of fathers holding their dead daughters.

And we're seeing reports directly from Palestinians for probably the first time. Young activists see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a power struggle. Our generation doesn't view issues through a single issue lens. And we have grown up participating in social movements that have been sweeping the country. Evan Weber is the political director of the Sunrise Movement. It's an organization focused on climate change. Sunrise was one of 140 groups to sign a statement calling for the Biden administration to condemn the Israeli government's plans to, quote, forcibly displace Palestinians. Progressives like Weber

think Biden has a vintage view of the conflict. They've been frustrated because they feel like they've been able to nudge the president on issues like climate change and racial justice, but not on this. It's been very disappointing. I think it's been one of the most disappointing things that we've seen so far from the Biden administration. This push from the left is not without controversy. When the chair of the Nevada State Democratic Party put out a statement saying the U.S. has for too long turned a blind eye to injustice and violence by the Israeli government, her comments drew criticism from multiple members of Nevada's congressional delegation. And so it is unlikely

the left will actually shape Biden's foreign policy, but they will continue to prod him. They're now protesting a U.S. arms sale to Israel. NPR political correspondent Asma Khalid. By the way, that arms sale she mentioned, it's for $735 million worth of precision guided weapons. A small group of Democrats in Congress led by Bernie Sanders may attempt to block the sale, but they face an uphill battle. We are committed to giving Israel the means to defend itself. Secretary of State Antony Blinken defended the deal in familiar terms. Especially when it comes to these indiscriminate rocket attacks against civilians. Any country would respond to that, and we're committed to Israel's defense.

Blinken will travel to the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Egypt this week, where he plans to support efforts to solidify a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Adi Cornish.