How are we to understand the recent efforts of the “Justice” Democrats to cut funding for military assistance to the State of Israel? To hear them tell it, their actions are humanitarian and would stop a powerful bully (Israel) from using American tax dollars to kill innocent Palestinian Arab civilians.
This is nonsense.
Based on their recent statements, it seems apparent that the Justice Democrats – the group energized by Bernie Sanders’ campaign – give very little worry to the lives of Israeli civilians. But what has become increasingly apparent is that they also don’t give much consideration to endangering the safety of Arabs in the area, either – so long as it means the weakening, and eventual destruction of, Israel as a Jewish state. (While the “Justice Democrats” website does not go into much detail on any policy issues, the politics of the Justice Democrats and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) overlap to such an extent that the leading members of the the former grouping are members of the latter, which has a page going into detail on their policy preferences for Israel and the disputed territories.)
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) introduced a provision into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which funds America’s military goals yearly, to ban the transfer of $725 million worth of “JDAMs” to Israel. According to the representative, writing Sept. 17 on Twitter, the reason for the amendment was to punish the “Israeli gov over the bombing of Palestinian civilians, media centers”. Ocasio-Cortez knows well enough that the “media centers” (it should be in the singular form, as there was only one building) was actually a base of Hamas operations, and she knows that the leadership of her own party have seen and accepted the proof of this. She also knows full well that Israel goes beyond any other country in warning civilians before bombs fall. Apparently, none of this matters. Instead of being upset at the death of civilians (which happened in Israel as well during the war brought about entirely by Hamas), this new strand in the progressive movement is upset at Israel having the ability to defend itself.
Why else would anyone oppose the sale of JDAMs, if not to undermine Israel’s defense mechanisms? JDAM is an acronym for “Joint Direct Attack Munitions.” It is possible that AOC is so uninformed that she doesn’t know what these are (“I’m not the expert in geopolitics on this issue,” she said during a Firing Line interview after being questioned as to why she used the term “occupation” to describe Israel’s presence in the West Bank), but let us assume that she has done the most basic of research on the policy she is trying to influence. If she has, she knows that JDAMs are not weapons themselves. Instead, they are kits that, when attached to regular bombs, turn them into GPS-enhanced precision-guided weapons. Rejecting the sale of JDAMs, therefore, means pushing Israel to use “dumb” bombs instead of precision weaponry.
Why would anyone want Israel using dumb bombs when its military is engaged in a campaign in Gaza? The Gaza Strip has a population density of 13,069.1 people per square mile, meaning the whole area is far more densely populated than Chicago, which has a density of 11,783 people per square mile. In the most recent conflict, 243 people, both terrorists and innocents, were killed in Gaza. Without detracting from the fact that the death of any innocent civilian is a tragedy beyond imagination, it is obvious that the only way that the number of casualties could be kept this low was due to the use of precision weaponry. Those 243 people died in the course of an 11-day-long protracted fight where thousands of bombs were exchanged between Israel and Hamas. As a thought experiment, imagine a military plane dropping a single dumb bomb on a block in Chicago. Is it even possible to imagine that less than 243 people would die? A single subway car holds about 250 people. If an El (Chicago’s light rail system) station was hit in a regular business district, thousands of people could have easily died due to one “dumb” bomb. Contemplating how many would die over the course of a whole military conflict in such a populated area is indeed a grim intellectual exercise.
In essence, the proposal would have kept Israeli bombs “dumb.” Leaving Israel with only dumb bombs the next time Hamas decides to launch a volley of rockets would mean one of two things: Israel would be forced to allow rockets to rain down on it (even the Iron Dome isn’t perfect; 12 Israelis died in the most recent conflict, including children) or Israel would be forced to go into Gaza using imprecise bombs, killings either thousands or tens of thousands of civilians. Neither of these situations is good for anyone – aside from Hamas or PIJ.
This past week, this band of “progressives” convinced House Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to remove a billion dollars’ worth of support for Israel’s Iron Dome from a government funding bill. In essence, they told Pelosi, “Remove this money for Israel, or we’ll vote against keeping the federal government open.” Shamefully, Pelosi acceded to this measure. A billion dollars is, in relation to the federal budget, actually a relatively small amount, and anyone looking for pork to cut would do far better looking elsewhere. The aim was decidedly not to save money, but to cripple the Iron Dome. (The discussion of why the U.S. sends aid to Israel is long and complex; suffice it to say that the relationship is mutually beneficial, and also to point out that the U.S. sends military and other aid to many countries.)
Aside from hatred for Israel – increasingly common on the left and the right, fueled by non-factual “news” pieces from outlets like al-Jazeera – it is hard to imagine why anyone would oppose the Iron Dome. Composed of a set of purely defensive missiles, the Dome’s sole mission is to shoot down rockets fired into Israel, most often by Hamas or the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). The Dome quite literally does nothing more than defend the lives of Israelis from foreign rockets.
Indirectly, the Iron Dome saves Arab lives in Gaza. Without the Iron Dome, every single missile that enters Israeli air space every single time Hamas or PIJ decides to launch them would
potentially scores of kill civilians, and Israel would have no choice but to respond. With the Iron Dome, Israeli military officials are able to monitor how many missiles are coming in at a given time, and decide whether it is necessary to respond at all. Further, without the Dome, it is highly likely that the IDF would need to enter into a costly, in terms of human lives, ground battle in Gaza either to seek out and destroy all of Hamas’s rocket-launching capabilities or to dislodge Hamas outright. Regardless of how carefully the IDF and Israeli Air Force engage in combat, this would probably kill thousands.
Eliminating the Iron Dome would mean death for countless Israelis and Palestinian Arabs. There is no question of this. The only possible explanations for these Congressional representatives – who have never expressed any desire for fiscal constraint – and their ideological allies (including a few Republicans) to oppose the Iron Dome’s funding is either stupidity or a callous disregard for the lives of Jews so intense that this group is willing to see Arabs severely endangered only to spite Israel. Note that here “hatred of Jews” is written purposely instead of “hatred of Israel,” because eliminating the Iron Dome would not harm Israel’s self defense as a state; it has a strong military that would easily defeat Hamas. Eliminating the Iron Dome would leave the State of Israel fully intact even as it would cause the deaths of scores of Israelis and potentially thousands of Palestinian Arabs.
Thankfully, the efforts of the the Justice Democrats, in alliance with a few extremist America First Republicans, have so far ended in abject failure. Only yesterday, House Democrats introduced a resolution separate from the federal spending bill, House Resolution 5323, the Iron Dome Supplemental Appropriations Act, which passed 420-9, guaranteeing funding for the Iron Dome. Republican Rep. Thomas Massie (D-Ky.) who in 2019 was the only member of the House to vote against a bills supporting democracy in Hong Kong and condemning the ongoing genocide of the Uyghurs in China, voted against the Iron Dome funding. On the Democratic side of the aisle, Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Andre Carson (D-In.), Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Marie Newman (D-Ill.), and Jesus “Chuy” Garcia (D-Ill.) – Justice Democrats and their allies – voted against it, as Ocasio-Cortez and Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) voted “present.”
The vast majority of the Democratic and Republican Parties voted the right way, as did the overwhelming majorities of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues. A number of Democrats made excellent speeches, including the new progressive Democrat Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), the first gay Black member of Congress, who represents the district adjacent to AOC’s. Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) said what many were thinking when he responded to one of the Justice Democrats, Rep. Tlaib, and accused her of antisemitism for her more egregious statements. It is important to note, however, that Deutch’s statements can’t be interpreted as directed solely at one member of Congress, nor should this controversy be seen only as the work of a few members of the House. Instead, it is indicative of a rise in anti-Israel – connected very strongly to antisemitic – sentiment in America on both the far right and the far left. From Massie, it represents the resurgence of right-wing antisemitism under the guise of “human rights.” From the “progressives”, it represents the encroachment into the U.S. of Soviet-style antisemitism, displayed most vividly in recent times in Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, through the recently radicalized Democratic Socialists of America, the Justice Democrats, and other such groups. The influence of this group is growing and, if it is left unchecked, it could metastasize throughout the Democratic Party, potentially Corbynizing the Democratic Party. While Rep. Pelosi should be applauded for introducing the Iron Dome funding in a standalone bill, her original cowardly decision to strip it from the NDAA – and not to fight the move – is not promising.
Democrats and Republicans must clean house and replace those who hate Israel and Jews so much that they would sacrifice anything, even Arab safety, to spite Israel with better representatives – and they must combat the lie that legitimate criticism of Israel includes the vicious slander that the new “progressives” lodge.
