The era of bipartisan support for Israel is over.
Anti-Israel activists have worked for decades to undermine support for the Jewish state.
Today, as the latest Gallup tracking poll of attitudes toward the Middle East conflict indicates, Democrats now sympathize more with the Palestinians than with Israel.
Currently, 49% of Democrats are pro-Palestinian and only 38% support Israel.
It is the culmination of a trend that has been building for decades, as the two sides have largely swapped identities over the past 60 years when it comes to Israel.
In the immediate postwar period, Democrats were overwhelmingly pro-Israel.
It reflected how most Americans rightly viewed the tiny nation, as a brave democracy fighting for its life against the Arab and Muslim worlds that sought its destruction. Republicans were divided with many indifferent or openly hostile.
That changed when Republicans elected staunch pro-Israel Ronald Reagan, and by the 1990s the GOP had become overwhelmingly pro-Israel.
They understood that it was the only democracy in the Middle East and shared common values with Americans.
On the contrary, that support has only grown with Gallup showing that Republicans now support him by a staggering 78-11% margin.
Yet in 2001, Gallup reported that Democrats still supported Israel by a 51-16% margin.
While that is still true for some congressional Democrats, they are now out of touch with their party’s left-wing base.
What explains this displacement?
Gallup claims this could be a reflection of the “high number of Palestinians killed” in the conflict – without mentioning that these numbers are largely made up of terrorists killed.
But they are not wrong to see it as linked to the “decreasing religiosity” of most Americans since other believers – who are more likely to be Republicans – are strong supporters of Zionism.
They miss the real answer: the rise of the intersectional left that falsely compares the Palestinian war against Israel to the civil rights struggle in the United States and portrays the Jewish state as an expression of “white privilege” and a oppressor of the Palestinians. “people of color.”
Toxic myths
A generation of liberals imbibed the toxic myths of critical race theory in academia.
These bad ideas are now repeated in most liberal media and pop culture media.
They do not understand that the majority of Israeli Jews are themselves people of color and that Jews are the indigenous people of the country, not intruders.
Nor do they know that it is the Palestinians who have consistently rejected compromise peace offers.
Until they are ready to recognize the legitimacy of the only Jewish state on the planet, no matter where its borders are drawn, the conflict will continue.
After the hostility of the Obama administration, which reached a nuclear deal with Iran that endangered the existence of Israel, the so-called progressives dominate the Congressional Democrats with the Marxist “Squad” in the lead and celebrated like party rock stars. So the poll numbers are not a surprise.
Unlike anti-Semitic Brigade member Ilhan Omar, support for Israel is not “all about the Benjamins.”
The Jews did not buy Congress. Until our education system was hijacked by Marxist radicals, Israel was popular with Americans of all backgrounds.
And that remains the case among those, like most GOP voters, who don’t buy into the left’s lies about history and race.
But now it is no longer possible to pretend that both sides are equally committed to the defense of Israel.
Through the influence of ideology to which even President Joe Biden bends the knee, Democrats have reached a tipping point on Israel from which there may be no way back.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor of JNS.org. Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.