An Israel Earthquake Shakes The Democratic Party
Sid Shniad
An Israel Earthquake Shakes The Democratic Party
All due to the monstrous stupidity of Israel's genocidal reaction to October 7, 2023
MJ Rosenberg
May 26, 2026
A powerful senator just warned fellow Democrats: either break with the party’s pro-Israel orthodoxy that has reigned from Truman through Biden, or forget about winning Democratic primaries.
That sentence would have been almost unimaginable a year ago.
I’ve been writing about — actually praying for — the Democratic consensus on Israel to crack since 2000 (when Prime Minister Ehud Barak torpedoed the Rabin/Arafat Oslo process), but I never thought I’d see it.
And although Israel’s genocidal response to October 7, 2023, sent grassroots Democratic support for Israel straight down the toilet, I remained skeptical that the Democratic establishment would get the message. (Republicans are heading off the Israel bandwagon too, but that is a whole other story.)
But then this morning I read Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen’s New York Times column and, for the first time in years, I didn’t just think we were winning the battle against AIPAC and its allies — and for Palestinian freedom and security.
I knew it.
I don’t want to overstate this. The Gaza genocide and West Bank ethnic cleansing continue. People are dying and starving: Palestinians, Israelis, Lebanese, Iranians. But given that none of this would be happening without American permission — and American weaponry — a major shift inside the U.S. political establishment is profoundly significant.
That shift has been underway since October 2023. But today Sen. Van Hollen, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, spelled it out in 1,200 glorious words.
He did it by declaring the old Democratic Israel playbook a failure. And by warning Democratic candidates — especially presidential candidates — that they can either repudiate the old Israel playbook (“our ally,” “our fellow democracy,” blah blah blah) or forget about winning a primary.
(Bye-bye, Newsom, Shapiro, Pritzker, Buttigieg, Rahm Emanuel, et al.)
That is not ordinary dissent. That is a warning flare.
And it’s not even the most shocking thing in the essay.
Five things stood out.
First: The 2028 message
Van Hollen doesn’t merely argue for a policy change. He threatens political consequences for Democrats who don’t get on board.
He says Democratic primary voters “won’t trust” presidential candidates who lack “moral and strategic clarity” on Gaza and Israel — especially candidates who voted to send Netanyahu bombs during the Gaza blockade.
Then he twists the knife: voters, he says, will not support candidates who bring back Biden-era officials who “whitewashed the truth” and refuse to acknowledge their “complicity.”
Wow.
A Democratic senator is telling would-be nominees: support Biden’s Gaza policy, staff up with the same people, and you can forget about winning a Democratic primary.
That is an extraordinary thing to publish in the New York Times.
Second: Recognize Palestine Now
Not vague talk about negotiations. Not another pious invocation of “two states” while settlements multiply.
Van Hollen says the next Democratic president should recognize a Palestinian state and that the United States should regard Gaza, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as part of that state.
Third: Leverage
For years Democrats insisted they were frustrated with Israeli policy while continuing to provide unconditional military and diplomatic support.
Van Hollen says that if you want policy change, you use leverage.
He calls for ending U.S. taxpayer support, conditioning arms sales, and ending offensive weapons transfers unless Israel agrees to a time-bound plan to end the occupation.
That is not symbolic criticism.
That is the abandonment of a foundational assumption of mainstream Democratic policy.
Fourth: Genocide, Apartheid, Ethnic Cleansing
A sitting Democratic senator writes that “anyone who visits the West Bank under Israeli occupation can see an apartheid system at work.” He refers to what “human rights organizations and scholars have determined to be genocide in Gaza” and speaks of “ethnic cleansing” in the West Bank.
For years, these words — apartheid, genocide, ethnic cleansing — were treated as radioactive in mainstream Democratic discourse.
Now a Democratic senator is placing them squarely inside a New York Times op-ed under his own name.
Fifth: AIPAC and Its Satellites
Van Hollen explicitly says that AIPAC and its satellite organizations are a major obstacle, acknowledges their formidable influence in Congress, and portrays Democratic deference to AIPAC as central to the crisis. (Note: before the Gaza genocide, few Americans had heard of AIPAC. Now it’s a dirty word in both parties and among the general public!)
Again: this is not some backbench activist talking.
This is Senator Chris Van Hollen.
God bless Bernie, but he has never occupied the center of the Democratic Party.
Van Hollen does.
Now, skepticism is warranted. Washington is littered with brave op-eds that dissolve into nothingness when votes are called, fat-cat donors complain, or election season begins.
The real test isn’t what Democrats write in op-eds.
It is what they do when military aid packages come up, when AIPAC mobilizes its dwindling but wealthy followers, when a presidential nominee assembles a foreign-policy team.
But let’s not miss what happened here.
A mainstream Democratic senator just argued that Democratic Israel policy has failed; that unconditional support must end; that Palestine should be recognized, including East Jerusalem; that apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and genocide belong inside the mainstream conversation; and that Democratic presidential hopefuls who cling to Biden’s approach risk political ruin.
Whether Democrats act on it or not, this is not incremental change.
That is a political earthquake.
PS. Don’t worry that AIPAC and its Maryland satellites will take out Van Hollen in 2028. One, no Republican can beat a Democratic nominee for the Senate in Maryland. As for the primary, Maryland Democrats are among the most progressive in the country. Other than pockets of Orthodox Jews (and not all of them by any means) and the fervent Zionists who choose to live in parts of Baltimore and Montgomery Counties, Democrats here are not Israel Firsters. Of course, if we are lucky, Van Hollen will be running for president and Jamie Raskin will be running to succeed him.
We can’t lose.
AIPAC can’t win.
Not in Maryland.