Purity

As the Democrat party veers inexorably Left, a disturbing thing has happened. The Dems are becoming an anti-Israel party, ironically supported both monetarily and politically by a majority of American Jews.

The Dems take their lead from Barack Obama who has been consistently antagonistic to Israel throughout his presidency; from Hillary Clinton, whose State Department during her tenure was critical of Israel at every turn, and from Bernie Sanders, whose far-Left positions dovetail beautifully with the BDS movement and the combined anti-Semitic and anti-Israel rants emanating from the hard-Left.

Just recently Bernie Sanders appointed two virulently anti-Israel ideologues to the Democratic Platform Committee. Both Cornel West and James Zogby combine dishonest/delusional criticism of Israel with enthusiastic endorsement of the terror state that is run by Hamas in Gaza and quietly endorsed by almost all "palestinians." Clinton's reaction? Crickets.

The Wall Street Journal editors comment:

Pro-Israel Democrats might reply that Messrs. West and Zogby are only two of a 15-person panel, and Hillary Clinton has taken a more mainstream line. But there’s no gainsaying the increasingly anti-Israel tilt of progressive politics. A Pew poll from April found that while moderate Democrats still sympathized with Israel over the Palestinians by a 53% to 19% margin, self-identified liberal Democrats now tilt to the Palestinians, 40% to 33%.

Even Mrs. Clinton is only moderate on Israel when compared to the Democratic left. Her State Department was notorious for its denunciations of Israel, and some of her closest advisers are often quicker to denounce Israeli self-defense than Palestinian terror.

The shame of all this is that support for a robust liberal democracy like Israel should come naturally to the Democratic Party. Last we checked, it was better to be a woman, or homosexual, or environmentalist, or political dissident in Tel Aviv than in Gaza. As they write their party’s platform, Democrats might ask why Israel, the one Middle Eastern country that fully shares their values, should be the one they most seek to condemn.

But the Dems won't ask that question because the answer might allow reality to intrude on one aspect of the Left's fantasy ideology. Better to express solidarity with a "palestinian" culture that teaches children to hate before they teach them to read. Better to make excuses for terrorist murderers who reward those who kill civilians by naming streets after them. Better to embrace the despicable BDS cult and name one of it's prominent spokesman to the Democrat platform committee.

But I forget—the Left is morally pure, and its preening is simply an expression of that purity. Or is it?

UPDATE(6/1/16):
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The editors of The Observer discuss the Democrats' new anti-Israel stance when they write:

This shift in culture on the American left has already, under the Obama administration, manifested itself in policy. In early 2009, the president chose to re-join the UN Human Rights Council, a virulently anti-Israel body. The president famously wanted to put “daylight” between the U.S. and Israel, which led to flotillas trying to break the legal blockade of terrorist-controlled Gaza and a green light from the U.S. for European countries to begin their own boycott efforts. In the summer of 2014, during Israel’s war with Hamas, the administration closed Ben Gurion Airport to American air travel—an unnecessary move so outrageous that then-New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg personally flew to Tel Aviv to show it was safe. During the war with Hamas, the president also personally intervened to stop a shipment of Hellfire missiles to Israel. And then, of course, there’s the disastrous nuclear deal with Iran.

Through it all, President Obama has been generally careful (except for the time he was caught on mic complaining about Mr. Netanyahu to then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy) to frame his policies as being somehow pro-Israel. But the far left no longer pretends to be pro-Israel and unashamedly opposes American support for the Jewish state. They are ascendant in their party. At some point, the façade was going to crumble.

Last week, appointments to the platform committee of the Democratic National Convention were announced. The committee, made up of the 15 people who will craft the platform of the Democratic party, is a mix of the overtly anti-Israel and the Israel-tolerant. Only former-Rep. Howard Berman is a stalwart supporter of the U.S.-Israel relationship, but he’ll have to contend with an unprecedented anti-Israel cohort of Dr. Cornel West, Dr. James Zogby, Rep. Barbara Lee and Rep. Keith Ellison.

The only other foreign policy voice on the committee is Wendy Sherman. Prior to being relied on to save the Democratic Party from becoming an anti-Israel fever-swamp, she negotiated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the Iran nuclear deal) and the Agreed Framework (the North Korea nuclear deal). With that background, one would be forgiven for fearing that the result of these negotiations will be a DNC platform resembling the Hamas charter. Not because she’ll want it to, but because turning bad ideas into worse realities is her specialty.

Gee ... turning "bad ideas into worse realities" seems to be the raison d'etre for almost all Dems during the last eight years.