"Because you have people that are Jewish people that are great people — they don't love Israel enough[.]"  So said Trump at Saturday's Israeli-American Council's National Summit, after which he was lambasted for his "vile and bigoted remarks" by Jewish Democrat Council of America's executive director Halie Soifer.  Remarks relating to vileness were in fact made by the president at the event.  He voiced his strong disapproval of "the vile poison of anti-Semitism" operating under the guise of the BDS movement and took jabs at Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, the figureheads of anti-Semitism currently on shameful congressional display. 

A cursory glance at Pew Research Center's 2019 survey, in which only 26 percent of Democrats appraise the government of Israel favorably, is all it takes to understand that the anti-Semitic sentiments are indeed plainly emanating from the Left.  One does not have to look hard to spot the pernicious anti-Israel reality in their ranks.  Tlaib's interview with Janna Jihad, 13-year-old anti-Israel journalist and member of the terror-glorifying Tamimi family, was one such disgraceful indication.  Gushing over her upcoming trip to "Palestine," Tlaib detailed her plans of "focusing on just looking at the human impact of what Occupation is" and teaching her colleagues what it really means to suffer under the Israeli "segregation" and "dehumanization" of Palestinians.

In a most myopic move, the above will continue to be brushed off by pro-Israel Jewish Dems as far-removed extremism.  Meanwhile, the "mainstream" Left's leading candidates are floating about as far away as they can get from Israel, buoyed by the raging stream that constitutes the ever-growing anti-Israel voting bloc.  So, contrary to what the Jewish Democrat Council of America and similar pro-Israel groups would like to believe, Democratic solidarity with our most important ally is crumbling.

It wasn't always this bad.  The 2014 Gaza War had a popular Democrat like Warren giving her due lip service by legitimizing Israel's right to defend itself against rocket attacks and supporting a Senate vote for additional military funding.  That's why when Liz smilingly committed to anti-Israel group IfNotNow's request to push the Israeli government to end its "military occupation" over Palestinians, the Jewish Democrat Council of America was, understandably, perturbed.

Soifer had this to say on the overall Democratic position on Israel: "There's a [pro-Israel] consensus. There's no need to create divisions where they otherwise do not exist[.] ... Donald Trump would like nothing more than to see Democrats divided on issues related to Israel and the reality is that those divisions don't exist, so let's not try to create them."

There is absolutely a reason for panicked dismay from pro-Israel Democrats when the ice begins to crack, and one of their undisputed pro-Israel front runners promises to put right the presumed theft of Palestinian land with an eager "yes, yes.  So I'm there[.]" 

With Warren removed from the fancied unanimous nature of Democrats' pro-Israel ardor, shouldn't at least some of it be coursing through the veins of a certain third-leading Jewish candidate?  Think again.  Ever since he was crowned a proud "Anti-Occupation Jew" by IfNotNow, Bernie Sanders's unequivocal respect for Israel's right to exist reads something along the lines of this: "Unfortunately[,] Prime Minister Netanyahu and his allies seem to be preparing for a future in which Israel controls the entire territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River in perpetuity and the Palestinians receive limited autonomy within a disconnected series of communities."  Or, in another observation: "I see a Palestinian people crushed under a military occupation now over a half century old, creating a daily reality of pain, humiliation and resentment[.]"  All this despite the knowledge that if Israel gave up its entire sovereignty today, Palestinian terror groups would still be shouting death to the Jews and all Americans.

Some consensus.

The degradation of Israel for occupying its own land is the far greater consensus within the Democratic camp at this time.  Anyone with one eye open can see that.  And so, Warren and Sanders pandering to extremist, anti-Israel folk is their unambiguous way of letting American Jews know that earning those extra votes concerns them more than disassociating from the anti-Jewish fervor festering in sections of their party. 

With two thirds of American Jews identifying as Democrats or with a Democratic bent, maybe Trump is not entirely wrong in his view that there are a number of Jews in existence who just don't like Israel all that much.  Like it or not, the party a Jewish individual identifies with — in this case, the nascent party of the Palestinians — does suggest to one's fellow Jews his feelings regarding the Holy Land.  Rather than going ballistic at Trump's insinuations that Jews on the Left could be more supportive of their homeland by reckoning him "the biggest threat to American Jews" of our age, Soifer and those in her circle should take some of his much needed advice.  They'd do well to wake up and get a whiff of anti-Semitism's rotten fermentation in the party, where there won't be much room left for any real, unadulterated pro-Israel disposition. 

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr.