Fetterman slams party’s anti-Israel turn amid Palestinian state push

There is a growing notion that support for Israel is becoming a divisive issue on the American right, owing mostly to a handful of influencers who nobody who isn’t terminally online has ever heard of, but in fact, it’s Democrats who are divided in very plain sight.

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., an emerging leader in the caucus, on Friday took to X to say that “Recognizing a Palestinian State is an idea whose time has come,” which mirrors plans by France, the UK, and Canada, to do just that.

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I pointed out to the congressman that by “handing out prizes for massacring teenagers at music festivals, Hamas will learn this lesson well and execute it in blood,” which was to say, if they are rewarded, they will do it again.

Here it gets interesting. As Khana points out, his proposal “explicitly calls for a democratic Palestine where Hamas is not in power and has disarmed.” This led me press the congressman on whether this recognition would take place before or after Hamas actually left power.

“I am for recognizing a Palestinian state (non Hamas representative) and then working with the 22 Arab countries to work on a democratic Palestine,” he replied.

So, in effect, the answer was that, yes, as a result of the barbarism of Oct. 7, 2023 and its aftermath, Khanna wants to reward the terrorists with the achievement of their secondary goal, a Palestinian state. Their primary goal, of course, is the destruction of Israel.

I decided to see how a pro-Israel Democrat voice on Capitol Hill would react to Khanna’s proposal, so I asked Sen. John Fetterman, D-Penn., to weigh in. Boy did he.

“Witnessing many in the media and in my party turning Israel into a pariah state is just gross,” the maverick lawmaker told me.

Fetterman makes a key point here: The sudden calls for a Palestinian state are clearly not just a rebuke of Israel, but a threat to it. The Jewish state is being told to end its war, even with Hamas in power, or else.

The good news here is that Rep. Khanna and his anti-Israel allies have no more power to recognize a Palestinian state than you or I have to recognize a sovereign Quebec or Alberta. The bad news is that it may be Khanna, not Fetterman who represents the zeitgeist of the Democrat party on the Israel issue.

On Friday, it was Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who “reaped the whirlwind,” as he once put it, as protesters, including a New York City council member, descended on his office in Gotham to hoot, holler, and get arrested while voicing their opposition to Israel.

It could not have happened to a more deserving member of Democrat leadership. These protesters are the wages of Schumer’s fecklessness in the face of not just of anti-Israel sentiment in his party, but often, straight-up antisemitism. 

It was, after all, Schumer and his ilk who sat by quietly as Jewish students were harassed and chased down by pro-terrorist mobs on college campuses in recent years, a despicable situation that President Donald Trump has cracked down on.

This week, 27 Senate Democrats voted to cut some military aid to Israel. No Republicans did, but that also leaves 20 Democrats who didn’t. It was a pretty close margin among Democrats, even if the anti-Israel crowd is much, much louder.

Ultimately, if the Khanna wing of the Democrat Party has its way, Israel will be weakened, Hamas will be strengthened, and the deadly counterbalance of the past 75 years will be reinstated.

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The Fetterman wing, albeit quietly aside from the Keystone state’s hoodie-rocking senior senator, on the other hand, stands with Trump and almost all of the GOP in the firm belief that a return to the pre-war status quo that leaves Israel open to further attack is not acceptable.

Last year, in Israel, I had the chance to speak with officials, including some in the war cabinet, and they stressed one principle over and over: Neither Hamas, nor the Palestinian cause in general, can be allowed to grow stronger than it was on October 6, 2023.

It is a mystery as to why so many Democrats cannot understand that rewarding bad behavior begets more bad behavior, but whether this refusal stems from political necessity, or just hapless progressive naivete, it’s dangerous.

For now, it certainly seems that the virulent anti-Israel wave in the Democrat Party is washing over Fetterman and the few brave others standing for the Jewish state, like Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y. If there are others ready to stand up, now is the time.

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