American Jews face a Democratic Party rethinking unconditional Israel support

(RNS) — American Jews woke up to a stark new reality Wednesday: Decades of unequivocal support for Israel is no longer a key plank of the Democratic Party.

That reality was plain when almost half of Democrats in the House of Representatives (103 out of 212) voted Wednesday (July 15) to cut all $3.3 billion in military and humanitarian aid to Israel from a foreign affairs spending bill. The measure failed and only one Republican supported it — Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who sponsored the amendment to the bill.

But it underscored an emerging reality, that unconditional support for Israel’s actions in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon are no longer deemed acceptable by as many as half of elected Democrats.

Ian Lustick, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Pennsylvania and a consultant to past administrations on Israel, likened the result of the vote to a balloon popping.

“There’s a principle in physics and politics of constrained volatility,” Lustick said. “If there’s a tremendous amount of discontent that’s constrained over time because people are afraid or prevented from expressing it, it comes out explosively and fast, and that’s what happened.”

A growing number of Americans, including a growing number of American Jews, have soured on the Israeli government in the wake of the war in Gaza, with some calling it a genocide. Israel’s military assaults on Gaza, launched after Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that killed 1200 Israelis, have left more than 73,000 dead, according to the United Nations.

Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democratic leader in the House, hinted as much. In a letter to his colleagues, Jeffries said he was voting against the amendment but would not pressure his colleagues to vote with him.

“For the good of Israel and the Palestinian people, American policy in the Middle East must change,” he wrote.

His predecessor, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, went further and voted in favor of cutting aid to Israel.

“The American people are rightfully demanding an end to a perpetual cycle of war, and the Netanyahu government cannot maintain its current course,” Pelosi said in a statement. “Therefore, while this amendment is ill-conceived, I vote yes for the message that it sends.”

Ahead of the 2026 midterms, Democrats are facing increased pressure. Mainstream Democrats in Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey and New York have lost high-profile primary races to progressives who campaigned on ending U.S. military support for Israel.

Most notably, in a New York House district race, Brad Lander, who is Jewish and repeatedly described Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as a genocide, soundly beat Rep. Dan Goldman, the incumbent who, while criticizing some Israeli government actions, received funding from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, one of the top-spending political groups in U.S. elections supporting pro-Israel candidates. (Goldman, during the campaign, said he felt AIPAC had been singled out. “I do think there is an undercurrent of antisemitism in the degree to which AIPAC seems to be vilified,” he said.)

To some Israel supporters, such as Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a Democrat from New Jersey, the vote was devastating. “I think people are bowing to political pressure instead of actually looking at the facts on this,” he told Politico.

Establishment Jewish institutions remain staunch supporters of Israel and oppose cuts in U.S. aid. The American Jewish Committee said in a statement it was “deeply disappointed” that so many lawmakers voted in favor of cutting all aid to Israel. The Jewish Democratic Council of America called the vote a “cynical ploy by Republicans to divide Democrats.”

But more American Jewish institutions are also acknowledging criticism of Israel.

The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, the lobbying and advocacy arm of the country’s largest Jewish denomination, sent a letter to U.S. House members imploring them to vote against the measure to strip Israel of aid even as it acknowledged “genuine concerns about Israel’s conduct.”

“The behavior of the Israeli government is embarrassing,” Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, the center’s director, told RNS. “I can see why people are frustrated. But that doesn’t mean you just kind of summarily cut off aid. You have a rational conversation among allies, and you figure out what (are) the right policies (that) make sense to keep everybody safe.”

J Street, a progressive group long supportive of a two-state solution, said it opposed the House measure but that members could in good conscience vote “yes,” “no,” or “present,” because it was “one of the few opportunities to cast a recorded vote expressing opposition to the way American military assistance and American-supplied weapons have been used by the Israeli government.”

Dov Waxman, professor of Israel Studies at UCLA, said a divided Democratic Party is exactly where American Jews are, too.

“The Democrats’ position is not out of step with the views of many, if maybe not most, Jewish Americans,” Waxman said. “The idea that we’re going to send $3.3 billion dollars of military aid to Israel, without regard for what Israel is doing in the West Bank or in the Gaza Strip, that is something that most Americans, and at least a plurality of American Jews, oppose as well.”

Waxman said the House vote doesn’t signal an end of all support for Israel but an end of the blank check policy of unconditional support.

A poll of American Jews earlier this year found that 70% of American Jews oppose unconditional military and financial assistance to Israel. (That 70% was broken into two categories: 26% said the U.S. should stop providing aid to Israel, and 44% said the U.S. should condition military and financial assistance to Israel by requiring Israel to comply with U.S. law.)

Among U.S. Jews under 35 years old, 51% favored stopping all aid to Israel, the poll commissioned by J Street found.

American Jews, about 70% of whom vote Democratic, also hold negative views of President Donald Trump. Asked if they might abandon the Democratic Party in light of its wavering support for Israel, Lustick said he doubted it.

“The visceral hatred of Trump is so deep that they will not vote Republican,” said Lustick. “There might be less enthusiasm for some Democrats, but we’ll learn a lot from the upcoming election.”