WASHINGTON (RNS) — When the House of Representatives voted earlier this month on whether to strip military aid to Israel, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland approached the moment carefully. As a supporter of defensive weapons for Israel, Raskin, who is Jewish, has also become increasingly critical of the Israeli military’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank in recent years.
Raskin, who already co-sponsored a bill last year that would restrict transferring offensive weapons from the U.S. to Israel, was wary of the Republican influence behind the measure, put forward by Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky. But Raskin ultimately joined 102 other Democrats, seven of them Jewish, in backing the provision.
“That gotcha vote became a referendum on Netanyahu and his conduct of the Gaza War,” Raskin told Religion News Service, later adding, “Large majorities want to see an end to the continuing cycles of violence, terror, occupation and war. We need a new direction beyond war for Israelis and Palestinians alike.”
Despite Raskin’s support for the amendment, 98 Democrats helped vote down the measure alongside 215 Republicans. The remaining 13 Jewish Democrats in the House were among the opponents — including Ohio Rep. Greg Landsman, who said he was left stung after watching so many fellow Democratic colleagues back the measure.
“It felt like a betrayal,” Landsman, a vocal supporter of Israel, said. “Most Jews feel very, very, very, very, very vulnerable right now.”
The vote — and the range of reactions to it, including among Jewish Democrats — laid bare a growing fissure over Israel within the Democratic Party, one that is rapidly fracturing longstanding political alliances, reshaping congressional races and, party leaders argue, being exploited by Republicans.
“It feels like we’re in the middle of a fast-moving change — change is happening as we are speaking,” Halie Soifer, head of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said during a phone interview as she walked between lawmakers’ offices on Capitol Hill earlier this month. “It is hard to fully capture, perhaps, the significance of it.”
Soifer acknowledged recent surveys that showed sharp drops in support for the Israeli government among Americans overall, and Democrats in particular: According to a Pew Research poll, among adult members of the Democratic Party or those who lean Democratic, just 16% view Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government favorably, a 19-point drop from 2022.
And according to a June AP-NORC poll, Jewish adults are even more likely to view Netanyahu himself negatively (59%) than Democrats (54%) or U.S. adults in general (38%). Indeed, both Raskin and Landsman expressed different levels of criticism of the Israeli government, which launched an assault on Gaza in 2023 after a Hamas-led attack on Israel killed 1,200 and resulted in 251 taken hostage. Israel’s assault, in turn, has left some 73,000 Palestinians dead, according to the Gaza Health Ministry — a death toll that has spurred dramatic protests against the Israeli government in the U.S., including some led by left-leaning Jewish activist groups like Jewish Voice for Peace.
“There is a real issue with what the Israeli far-right leaders have done,” Landsman said, speaking generally about the nation’s government. “I hate far-right governments, Israeli or otherwise.”
But Landsman stressed the importance of efforts to “work the democracy” in Israel to bring about change, and has maintained that voting in favor of Massie’s provision is “really bad for our ally, for our national security.”
Polls show a small majority of Jewish Americans — particularly those age 30 or older and those who identify as “Jews by religion” — have an emotional attachment to the Israeli state, and Soifer insisted there is still strong support for the country overall among Democratic lawmakers. Soifer said criticism of the Israeli leadership, which she described as “far right” and “extreme,” is different from taking an anti-Zionist stance or opposing Israel’s existence.
“Both Democrats and the majority of Jewish Americans are grappling with the fact that we support Israel, we stand with the people of Israel and we support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish democratic state, and we support Israel’s future and security,” she said.
Even so, the issue has emerged as a flashpoint in Democratic primaries, with candidates backed by party leaders working to fend off left-wing challengers who are strident critics of Israel and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, an influential pro-Israel lobbying group that dates back to the 1950s. In many cases, the progressive challengers — many of whom decry Israel’s actions in Gaza as a genocide, a position now shared by roughly half of Democrats, according to the AP-NORC poll — have won congressional primaries in states such as Colorado, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York. An upcoming Democratic primary in Michigan is also being shaped by divides over Israel.
Alliances are shifting as a result. Shortly after the vote on the provision to strip military aid for Israel, AIPAC removed fundraising links on its website for 15 Democrats who voted in favor. Meanwhile, J Street, a Jewish advocacy organization that had previously been seen as left wing, is now positioning itself as the standard bearer for a middle-way approach on Israel, according to Jeremy Ben-Ami, who leads the group. He framed J Street’s overall position on Israel, which is sometimes describes as liberal Zionism, as moderate — namely, being willing to vocally criticize Israel while maintaining a belief in the country’s right to exist alongside a Palestinian state.
“We are trying to stake out that middle ground and thread that needle,” Ben-Ami said. He noted that J Street’s budget has doubled in size over the past five years, as has its number of chapter leaders. And while some groups have argued the organization is not “ferocious enough in our response to all of this,” Ben-Ami said, he believes J Street speaks to a broader middle ground.
“I think we represent the largest segment of Jewish Americans,” Ben-Ami said.
In practice, that means maintaining ties with all eight Jewish Democrats who voted for the Massie amendment: All still appear on J Street’s website as endorsed, along with fundraising links. (Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois also appears, although the website notes she is not seeking reelection.) According to OpenSecrets, Raskin has received around $27,000 in support from J Street.
However, even with a growing number of Democrats voicing criticism of Israel, the topic remains charged. RNS reached out to several Jewish Democrats who voted in favor of Massie’s provision, but only Raskin agreed to offer comment. Others either did not respond or declined.
Meanwhile, Landsman, who has received nearly $600,000 from AIPAC, said the growth of anti-Israel sentiment in the Democratic Party has “personally been very challenging.” Landsman, who holds a Masters of Divinity from Harvard, pointed to recent antisemitic attacks in the U.S. and in other parts of the world and claimed some lawmakers told him they voted in favor of Massie’s provision out of fear of left-leaning activists and candidates.
The result, he argued, is a “cavalier” approach to Israel that he believes may pose an existential threat to Jewish people.
“Of the 16 million Jews — which is not a big number, globally — most of us live either in the United States or in Israel,” he said. “That’s how unwelcoming and difficult the world is for Jews.”
Raskin also lamented what he called a “scandalous attempt” by the Israeli prime minister and some of his supporters to “say that the Netanyahu government speaks for and represents all Israelis and all Jews in the world, so if you oppose Netanyahu’s policies, you are anti-Israel or even antisemitic.”
“We have seen a similar sinister and conflating move by some anti-Semites on the far-left to attribute the actions of the Netanyahu government to all Israelis and all Jews in the world,” he said. “These willfully false claims are very dangerous fallacies.”
Both the Democratic supporters and opponents of the Massie amendment, including Raskin, Landsman, Soifer and Ben-Ami, believe the vote was an attempt by Republicans to foment division among Democrats. And they all expressed dismay over what they say is rising antisemitism among Republicans and the far-right, which Raskin said is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid online.
“There’s extreme anti-Semitism on the right, and I could prove it to you just by showing you my email inbox or Facebook page,” Raskin said, adding, “I’ve been called the K word so many times, I’ve lost count.”
But the divisions over Israel among liberals are real, and how Jewish Democrats plan to navigate the new political environment surrounding the topic is an open question. Landsman said that after the vote on the Massie amendment, he felt “so much more connected” to Democrats who opposed the measure.
But Raskin, for his part, interpreted the moment differently. He said he rejected the notion that Jewish members of Congress should vote as a bloc, and argued the Massie amendment vote proved “unifying.” The speeches ahead of the vote by Democrats who both supported and opposed the bill, he said, showcased how “we need a basic reset in this relationship” with Israel, and the congressman insisted “we cannot follow the line that our Middle East foreign policy should be dictated simply by whatever the Netanyahu government does.”
“I think it’s a sign of health, as well as inevitable, that the Jewish members of Congress would approach this vote from different perspectives,” Raskin said.
