The last time I was at Ben Gurion Airport, I found myself scrambling into a bomb shelter as the Houthis launched missiles at civilians. A year later, returning to Israel, I barely escaped the airport before Iran did the same. Last night, my phone lit up with missile alerts as my taxi left the airport.
Quite a welcome back to Israel.
I am an American, a Democratic operative, and not Jewish. I have no personal stake in this conflict beyond the dire consequences of allowing Iran to endlessly destabilize the region. Yet, back home, I find myself having surreal conversations with people in my own party who seem unwilling to process the reality of Iranian-backed Islamic terrorists repeatedly targeting Israeli civilians.
I am part of a delegation this week working with the Israeli consulate during Pride Week. It is surprising that this even needs to be said, but Israel remains the only country in the region where LGBT people like me can live openly and with dignity.
Yet at home, none of this seems to matter.
I have had conversations with American feminists mourning the death of the Ayatollah, gay men rooting for a regime that would forcibly castrate them, and trans women insisting that the country our Palestinian sisters dream of escaping to is somehow killing trans women. It is a moral Disneyland populated by Americans so thoroughly conditioned by anti-Western propaganda that they can no longer distinguish terrorists from the victims of terrorism.
The situation feels even more surreal as a high-profile transsexual woman in the Democratic Party. At home, Donald Trump is stripping away my access to civil society. Just this week, he weaponized the Justice Department to rescind civil protections in employment, housing, and education.
Yet my left-versus-right politics end at the water’s edge.
A transgender-Republican alliance shatters previously held beliefs
I find myself in an uneasy alliance with Republicans, the only major political force in America currently willing to take the threat posed by the IRGC seriously.
I often watch interviews with Mike Huckabee speaking plainly about the security situation in Judea and Samara and find myself grateful he represents America here, despite belonging to another party. I hear Marco Rubio speak with clarity about responding when Iran attacks our allies and wish Democrats displayed similar moral certainty.
Yet I also doubt either man would extend to me the simple human dignity of calling me “she.” American domestic politics have become so consumed with presenting transsexual women as a threat that basic human decency is increasingly treated as a partisan issue.
So where is my loyalty supposed to lie?
I want a Democratic Party willing to confront the enemies of Western democracy. I want a Republican Party willing to treat transsexual women as human beings. I find myself choosing between a left increasingly willing to tolerate antisemitism and a right increasingly comfortable treating people like me as an enemy to be destroyed.
The Democratic Party stands with LGBT people, yet has become remarkably willing to excuse anti-Jewish extremism in spaces where it would never tolerate other forms of bigotry. The Republican Party is more willing to confront those threats, yet is led by a president who often seems more interested in short-term political advantage than permanently dismantling the IRGC and the machinery of terror it exports across the region.
And yet the choice is not as simple as left versus right.
Israel’s enemies are my enemies, even if many people in my own party are too propagandized to recognize it. While President Trump may speak about people like me with contempt, he is also willing to confront the Islamic political project that would gladly throw me off a roof.
That is the contradiction I cannot escape. And I do not think I am alone in feeling torn.
'There are no easy answers'
It is impossible to overstate how betrayed many American Jews feel, especially LGBT Jews. Most have been loyal supporters of the Democratic Party for their entire lives. Yet our party has made it painfully clear that the relationship is not being reciprocated.
And there are no easy answers. The left and right urgently need to work together to tell Americans the truth about theocratic Islam and the threat it poses to both our countries. This did not happen overnight. The people spreading these narratives built institutions, networks, and influence over decades. They invested patiently. They played a long game.
Anyone serious about preserving Western democracy must be willing to do the same.
It will take patience. It will take resources, meaning tens of millions of dollars of investment. And it will require people who disagree on almost everything else to stand together in defense of shared values and common survival. We are going to have to build institutions capable of telling the truth more effectively than our adversaries can spread lies.
My work in Israel this week is officially about celebrating Israel’s commitment to LGBT rights. But for me, it is about something larger.
It is about recognizing that the fight for Israel’s survival and the fight for liberal democracy are increasingly inseparable. And about deciding whether America is still willing to defend either one.
The writer is a Democratic strategist and former congressional candidate and is best known for her role in the 2014 Gamergate scandal. In the aftermath of October 7th, she had a public break with the American progressive movement over antisemitism.