Preserving American Values

At the DNC’s annual meeting this week, there were 2 resolutions on the Gaza War.  The Progressive wing’s resolution called for an arms embargo and the suspension of military aid to Israel.  The other called for an immediate ceasefire, the unconditional release of all hostages, unrestricted delivery of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza, and reaffirmed support for a two-state solution.

Neither resolution presented a comprehensive Democratic position on how the U.S. should attempt to bring about an end to the war.  The Progressive’s resolution was inadequate because they just went for the jugular and did not address other key issues and context. 

The mainstream resolution supported by the DNC Chair included the necessary context and hit many important marks, but it utterly failed to address the legitimate point raised by the Progressives, which is how can Democrats and the U.S. continue to support Israel militarily in this war.  Note: this is not about not supporting Israel militarily; it is solely about not supporting it with arms in this war.

Proposing military sanctions is necessary because Netanyahu’s only concern is how to keep himself in power and he sees it in his interest to prolong the conflict.  Thus, sanctions are the only way to get Israel to change course while he is in charge.  This will never happen under Trump,  but the Democratic Party, as the party of opposition, must be the voice of reason.

U.S. law provides for withholding arms sales in various situations.  First, defense articles may be sold for specific purposes only, including “internal security and legitimate self-defense.” Second, no security assistance may be provided to any country whose government engages in a “consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.”

As applied to the Israel-Gaza war, clearly Israel’s military actions crossed the line long ago from being “legitimate self-defense” to being an offensive war.  And the claim can be made that Israel has engaged in a “consistent pattern of gross violations” of internationally recognized human rights.

There is thus a way to include both the mainstream and the progressive perspectives in a resolution that would be reasoned, just, and comply with U.S. law.  Such a resolution would anger committed Democratic supporters of Netanyahu and the ultra-orthodox, but there is probably no way to placate them and still end the war while Netanyahu is in power.

The DNC should have engineered this before the meeting.  Being a big tent is only a strength if those different perspectives, rather than causing division, are blended into a more comprehensive response to the reality of our lives and the world. Instead, the division within the Party was on display before DNC Chair Martin assigned a task force to resolve the differences between the two positions.

As a Jew and the child of holocaust survivors, I am a strong supporter of Israel’s right to exist. And as a supporter of a two-state solution, I have been a critic of conservative Israeli governments over the years that have supported West Bank settlers with a view to making a two-state solution logistically impossible.  

I have been against such actions not just because I feel they were inhumane, but because they are counter-productive.  If the goal is security such actions do not further that goal.

Without question, there is lots of blame to pass around on all sides of this ongoing conflict.  Palestinian offenses did not begin October 7.  There is a long history of the Palestinian leadership’s and surrounding Arab states’ hostility towards Israel, even its right to exist. And they have used Israel’s actions against Palestinians to rouse people to violence and to a hatred of Israel.

For both Israelis and Palestinians, how do you make peace with someone who does not recognize your right to exist? I know that the Palestinian leadership removed the offensive phrase from their charter, but that was for many more show than substance. And the far-right leaders of Israel have certainly not shown a recognition of Palestinians’ right to exist. 

The answer is that one needs to find ways to build trust. Unfortunately, since the Oslo Accords, both sides have done more to hamper trust than to  build it. But that is the only way forward. The one real positive change is that five Arab states have now recognized Israel’s right to exist and have diplomatic relations with it.

Clearly, building trust cannot be done with Netanyahu at Israel’s helm, nor with Hamas at the Palestinians’ helm.  The Arab League recently recognized this fact by saying that Hamas must put down its arms and relinquish control of Gaza.  That would be a major trust-building action. Israeli voters getting rid of Netanyahu would be another.