Israel or Iran?

Political debate is more than ever a cock fight. We no longer look for civil conversation but insults, one-upmanship, and blows to the head. It’s a game for gunslingers, not political professionals. I’m not sure when all of this began, but I remember a time when a different ethos prevailed. Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman did a vice-presidential debate that seemed dignified in its time and reasonably civil. Little did I know that Cheney was a demon and Lieberman a turncoat.

The new style prevailed last week in Michigan pitting Abdul El-Sayed and former Representative Mike Rogers. This time the gotcha came from the moderator. The question was about Israel and Iran. Which was more dangerous to the United States?

It’s no surprise that El-Sayed hemmed, condemning the question as a ridiculous hypothetical. He hawed when he was asked the question again. For many Jews in Michigan, this is a radioactive issue. When an Arab terrorist plowed into a synagogue preschool bent on triggering a mass casualty event, El-Sayed worked to place the question “in context.” Family members related to the terrorist had been killed in Israeli attacks in Lebanon. El-Sayed’s justification was “hurt people hurt people.”

To his credit, El Sayed later apologized. Many Jewish voters will not forgive him and consider him an enemy of the State of Israel. Regardless of the circumstances, they are exactly right. Like Mamdani in New York, El-Sayed is a confirmed anti-Zionist. Whatever he may think about American Jews, he regards Israel’s existence as an alien intrusion, without legitimacy, an indefensible evil.

But what caught me by surprise was the directness of his answer. After all the hemming and hawing on the podium (not much), he ultimately pointed his finger at Israel, calling it the instigator of the war against Iran. He then rejected the idea that it could be an ally, arguing that allies don’t lead allies into war.

This is, of course, a complicated issue. Allies do indeed lead allies into war. By the sound of things, that’s exactly what Trump wanted despite the misgivings of his Vice President and his generals, many of whom pointed to the flaws in Israel’s argument.

But what’s astonishing here was El-Sayed himself. There are some 130,000 Jews in Michigan. Many of them now regard El-Sayed as poisonous, but it doesn’t seem to matter to either him or his campaign. He figures that the voters of Michigan are with him, and that the Jewish voting block (or whatever may be left of it) is an expendable element in the political landscape of this race. Liberal rabbis don’t matter. Zionists don’t matter. The AIPAC community certainly doesn’t matter to either candidate in the Michigan race. Despite the pro-Zionism of Republican Mike Rogers, he has asked AIPAC to kindly back away. He simply doesn’t want to be seen in public holding hands with Israel’s staunchest defender.

I wish I knew what to make of all of this. It has been three years since the terror of October 7, and the failed government of Benjamin Netanyahu has managed to squander the good will that Israel accumulated over nearly a century. We are arguably just weeks from a potential turning point, but it is equally likely that the current situation will continue. It will be decades before we work out another reality. El-Sayed is more than the canary in the coal mine. He is a flashing neon signal that everything has changed.