In the aftermath of Kamala Harris and the Democrats’ humiliating loss to Donald Trump this week, Zionist commentators on CNN bizarrely concluded that a major contributor to Harris’s defeat was her campaign’s lack of support for Israel — despite Democrats’ completely unmitigated backing of Israel as it commits some of the worst atrocities in modern times.
On the night of the election, as it became clear Trump was poised to win, CNN’s panelists said, without evidence, that Democrats failed to address concerns of Zionists during the campaign.
In a clip posted by Drop Site, top Trump adviser Alyssa Farah Griffin pointed to a Republican Jewish Coalition ad in which Jewish women said that “Israel is under attack” and that Trump will “keep us safe” amid rising antisemitism. Griffin said that the ad “resonates with people” — despite Trump embracing neo-Nazi supporters and parroting dangerous antisemitic tropes on the campaign trail.
Agreeing, liberal pundit Van Jones cited an ad criticizing “Kamala around fear about Israel not being protected,” again, citing zero evidence. “There was never a response from the campaign on that,” Jones said, implying that a political campaign has to address negative ads against them. Democratic strategist David Axelrod, also on the panel, said he agreed.
In reality, Harris repeatedly and clearly stated her “commitment to Israel’s defense” — in this case, “defense” referring to Israel’s ability to carry out genocide in Gaza and violence in the occupied West Bank and other adjacent populations. Just on Monday, in her final rally in Michigan, she said that she would “ensure Israel is secure” as president.
The comments show that even the Biden administration’s shoveling of tens of billions of dollars to Israel to slaughter Palestinians apparently isn’t enough to satisfy the most ardent Zionists. Despite the Democrats’ total fealty to Israel and Trump-supporting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — to the point of implicating themselves as war criminals, experts warned — the Zionist pundits still managed to twist the narrative. The message, it seems, is to broadcast to Democrats looking for a reason for the defeat to dig down even deeper into their support of Israel.
This analysis ignores all evidence about how Americans truly feel about the U.S.’s support of Israel. Countless polls taken throughout Israel’s invasion have found that the public not only opposes Israel’s genocide, they also support an arms embargo on Israel and a ceasefire. Opposition to Israel’s assault and apartheid is strongest among Democratic voters, and polls found that significant swaths of voters said they would be more likely to vote for Harris if she called for an end to the arms transfers.
Later, again on CNN, Farah fear mongered about the pro-Palestine protests on college campuses, pushing a false narrative about the movement. “Women in the suburbs are horrified when they see Jewish kids getting bullied and getting intimidated by these protesters,” she went on, saying that Democrats “misread the room” on the protests.
Farah’s portrayal of the protests is wrong. There is no evidence of protesters abusing Jewish students — in fact, many university administrators harmed Jewish demonstrators in their violent police crackdowns on the protest.
Biden embraced right-wing rhetoric when he condemned the protests in May — long before Harris was the presidential nominee — and fascistically claimed that, while the U.S. does not “squash dissent,” when it came to the pro-Palestine protests, “order must prevail.”
For those outside of Jones’s and Farah’s Zionist circles, it is clear that it is almost impossible to overstate Democrats’ support for Israel in the past year. In the first year of Israel’s Gaza genocide, the U.S. sent at minimum a record $18 billion in military aid to Israel, as Biden officials have repeatedly lied about and covered up Israel’s atrocities in order to continue justifying sending military aid. It seems there is little Israel could do to get the Democrats and Harris to revoke their support — not even killing American citizens in cold blood.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy