The Democratic Majority for Israel is trying to make the case that Israel still has widespread support among Black and LGBTQ+ Dems.
As pro-Palestine protesters rally outside the convention, pro-Israel Democrats gathered in Chicago to make the case that it was crucial for Democrats to continue to be supportive of Israel and not let Republicans seize that mantle.
“We’ve got to make sure that the Democratic Party is a pro-Israel party,” Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) told the crowd at a Democratic Majority for Israel brunch on Wednesday. He called the contention by some Republicans that the more than half a million Democrats who voted uncommitted in presidential primaries this year were “pro-Hamas” was “total bullshit.”
Sherman noted there was a sizable segment of Democrats who voted uncommitted in 2012 and alleged that “everybody who thought Joe Biden was too old voted uncommitted.”
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), a former DNC chair, told attendees to read the talking points on Kamala Harris’ Israel record from her campaign and applauded vice presidential nominee Tim Walz for “reflexively” supporting Israel after October 7.
“The doubters are coming out,” she warned. “The Republicans are trying to sow discord, to try to create angst and tsuris in our community, and we can’t let that happen. We have to stand up and we have to speak in parlor meetings, when we’re out to dinner with friends, when we’re playing Mahjong.”
While there have been worries about the Democratic Party’s attachment to Israel and younger generations being less supportive of the country, DMFI brought together a group of Democrats from varying backgrounds to make the case that Israel still has widespread support among Democrats who are Black or LGBTQ+.
Rep. Shontel Brown, a Black Democrat from Ohio, said that growing up in the inner city, hearing gunshots was “not an unfamiliar thing to me,” but recalled how when she visited an Israeli kibbutz near Gaza, she “never felt more vulnerable” and that the experience solidified her support of Israel.