Israel is facing major challenges from both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Dan Diker, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday after the US House of Representatives voted on an amendment to cut off aid to Israel.
The House voted 314 to 104 to defeat the measure on Wednesday, offered as an amendment to a State Department spending bill by Republican Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky. However, 103 Democrats and one Republican backed it, a sharp departure from years in which bills supporting Israel passed almost unanimously.
"It's clear that the Democratic Party has moved consequentially to the left, and that they are much more heavily influenced by people in the progressive flank," Diker told the Post.
“It’s a troubling direction that we see now in Washington, not only in the Democratic Party, but also in the Republican Party, because the Republican Party is split about its own self-understanding.
“You have the vice president of the United States sitting for over two hours on the Joe Rogan populist podcast show and casting these completely unfounded aspersions on Israel as if we are advancing psychological operations, information operations, against him personally. And he starts cursing out Israel, America’s best ally, maybe in the world, definitely in the Middle East, because of his own failed efforts against the Iranian regime.
Israel must be independent from the US
“The indications from this vote is that Israel should open its eyes very, very widely and understand that it has major challenges. There’s a lot of – there’s a convergence between the isolationist wing of the Republican Party and the left wing of the Democratic Party.”
Diker said Israel needs to be very focused on maintaining its relationship with the United States, because the “United States is Israel’s greatest, most dependable ally.”
But, at that same time, he stressed that Israel must be independent from the US.
“The October 7 … massacre taught Israel that it must become independent in terms of supplying its own military security and defense capabilities, and we cannot be dependent on anyone as a supplier,” he explained.
“We have to be able to fundamentally arm and supply ourselves to be able to be fully security and defense independent.”
Diker said that this is the lesson that comes out of these types of political developments (such as the Massie Amendment); “It emphasizes and re-emphasizes the importance of staged independence, especially in the face of this eight-front war that we’re facing.”
Nevertheless, he added that “Trump really appreciates a strong Israel.”
Not all Democrats support the Massie amendment
“Trump looks at Israel as a winner, and that’s what Trump likes. But what happens is when you go deeper into civil society, especially on the liberal side, they become less enamored of Israel’s power and ability to defend itself well. And I think generally, certainly in the free world where they look at victims and people who perceive to be oppressed as being virtuous, there is the expression ‘strong is wrong, weak is right.’”
“And Israel is on the strong side today. That’s why the more powerful Israel behaves in terms of deterring its enemies, the more antisemitism spikes in the West.”
The most important message from Diker is that Israel is fighting on the “front lines of the war for Western civilization.”
While many Democrats supported cutting aid to Israel, he said what they do not understand is that “the people who hate America hate Israel because they think we’re an extension of America; that’s why they’re trying to destroy us.”
“The point here is that the West needs to understand the ideological structure of the – of its enemies in the Middle East and how Israel is fighting with its daughters and sons to protect America from the Middle East against another 9-11,” he added.
Of course, not all Democrats supported the Massie amendment.
Democratic Rep. Laura Gillen said, “The State of Israel is one of our most important allies and the only democracy in the Middle East.”
She called the amendment “extremely harmful” and said it would “threaten our strategic alliance, undermine our national security interests and eliminate funding for important research and diplomacy in the region.”
Rep. Brad Sherman said the Massie amendment “sends a clear signal to the enemies of America that we are willing to abandon our allies and our own security.”
He proudly announced that he “stood against this anti-Israel, pro-terror amendment.”