Why Democrats Still Give Military Aid to Israel?

Photo: Roberto Schmidt Agence France-Presse Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Democratic White House candidate and US Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington last July.

Léo Mercier-Ross

Published yesterday at 9:30 AM

• United States

This text is the answer to readers' questions sent to the American Elections Mail team. To subscribe, click here.

Why doesn't Kamala Harris decide to threaten Benjamin Netanyahu to stop his military aid (if she becomes president) in the event that he continues on the same path ? This in the context where American youth are in favor of this position.

— Louise Desrochers

Why are Democrats so reluctant to stop their arms contributions to Israel?? In the United States, there is a diaspora that contributes to the parties’ coffers, but is there anything else? ?

— Serge Edmond

Even though, in the United States, “sympathy for Israel is waning a bit because of tensions with Palestine,” Americans’ “historical commitment” to the Jewish state continues to dominate the political sphere, we says Karine Prémont, professor of applied politics at the University of Sherbrooke.

This “historical affinity” goes back to World War II, when the United States defended [Jews] during the Holocaust. Since then, the United States has seen it as “the idea of ​​a chosen people who face adversity,” according to Ms. Prémont. “Americans see themselves as a chosen people who are there to enlighten the world with their values. And that’s kind of how Israel presents itself as well.”

According to Rachad Antonius, a Middle East expert, the main reason for this support is that “the American elite has completely internalized the Israeli version of the conflict.” As a result ? “It sees the conflict through Israeli eyes” and “only deplores the violence without naming its cause – the occupation policy that has lasted for 57 years, even before Hamas launched its attacks on October 7,” adds the man who, in the past, publicly committed to the Palestinian cause.

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Continuity and inconsistency

The question therefore does not only arise for Democrats, but for the entire American political sphere. But since they currently hold power, they are the ones who take care of relations with Israel, and thus continue to supply it with weapons, although “the younger and more progressive” deny any form of support.

This support is nevertheless being given in a “rather timid” manner by Democrats, notes Christophe Cloutier-Roy, deputy director of the Raoul-Dandurand Chair’s Observatory on the United States. “They will ask for a ceasefire, but will still vote for arms shipments to Israel.” The Democratic Party is trying to hide the inconsistency in these policies as much as possible because it knows that it divides its own electoral base,” says the political scientist.

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In addition, in the United States, “there is a lobby very vocal Zionist, but there is no effective Palestinian lobby, strictly speaking,” which makes any decision that would go against Israel's wishes difficult, explains Élisabeth Vallet, director of the Geopolitics Observatory of the same chair.

The columnist at Devoiralso points out that, despite a “change in the Democratic Party's discourse” at its convention last summer – where “demands for a ceasefire became much clearer” – the distribution of weapons to Israeli forces remains “a component that is part of classic U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East”… and which will not change any time soon.

Could Harris force an end to the conflict ?

When asked whether the Democratic presidential candidate could threaten Benjamin Netanyahu to stop his military aid, Mr. Antonius replied that “like most politicians, especially those in the United States, Kamala Harris does not base her positions on principles or on the number of people who can approve of them. She bases them on their consequences on the financing of her campaign.”

The Zionist — or Israeli — lobby, which is “very powerful” in the United States, “operates through the American Israel Public Action Committee [AIPAC],” the professor in the Department of Sociology at UQAM dissects. “AIPAC follows all elected officials individually and finances them (or finances their opponents), depending on their position of support or not for the Israeli government in place. This is why Kamala Harris has repeatedly displayed her support for Israel.”

Even if this support “can influence the vote a little bit”, “it is mainly the advertising campaigns, whose effectiveness is defined by the financing, which will determine the vote”, indicates Rachad Antonius. The financial support of the Israeli lobby in the United States is therefore much more important for the candidate's campaign than a message against the Hebrew state would be.

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