Over the course of her tenure in Washington, Democratic presidential contender Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has adapted her position on Israel to cater to her most energetic base of support — the far Left. What once began as at least a rhetorically pro-Israel position has transitioned into full-fledged Israel-hatred.
The Warren campaign has hired anti-Israel extremist Max Berger, who is a co-founder of IfNotNow, a group that supports the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement that seeks the eventual elimination of the Jewish state. Additionally, Berger has come under fire for expressing sympathy for the militant Palestinian terror group Hamas, as Adam Kredo of The Washington Free Beacon reports.
“Anyone who wants to be friendly with Hamas has no business being in a presidential campaign,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center told the Free Beacon. “It’s very straightforward.”
Rabbi Cooper added: “If that’s the message that Elizabeth Warren wants to send to Jewish progressives and the rest of the American Jewish community, that the person she put in charge of outreach wants to be friends with Hamas, no way,” Cooper said, adding that he finds it hard to believe Warren would be comfortable knowing one of her staffers has engaged in such rhetoric. “She’s going to have to deal with this right now.”
In a Monday campaign town hall, Sen. Warren told activists from IfNotNow and a staffer for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) that she would commit to pressuring Israel to end its supposed “occupation” of the Palestinians.
And in addition to the Berger hiring, it’s worth noting that Sen. Warren has long been supported by Democrat mega-donor Paul Egerman, who is currently serving as her campaign treasurer. Egerman is an advisory council member to the anti-Israel group J Street, which was created to service former President Barack Obama’s anti-Israel agenda.
Sen. Warren appears to be committed to going to extreme lengths to demonize Israel and its supporters. This week, she pledged to use the powers of her office to launch an “investigation” into the supposed foreign influence of Jewish GOP donor Elliot Broidy, who, coincidentally or not, happens to be a major supporter of the state of Israel.
“Warren is now making a campaign issue of an investigation that she demanded of a political opponent who has yet to be charged with a crime, much less convicted,” RedState’s Streiff wrote Tuesday in response to the new Warren campaign pledge. “Regardless of the merits of the case, campaigning on using your personal clout to strong arm the Justice Department into investigating someone who is a political opponent is something that just isn’t done in American politics,” the piece continued.
Sen. Warren’s abandonment of our most vital Middle East ally began gradually, in 2015, when she and fellow Democrats boycotted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress.
In 2017, she slammed the Trump administration for publicly recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. A few months later, Warren targeted the Israeli military for its response to Gaza rioters.
Then, in 2018, Warren signed onto a letter (along with fellow anti-Israel presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders) calling on the secretary of state to do more to address the several crises in the Gaza Strip. The letter makes no mention of Hamas, the terrorist group that rules Gaza.
Today, in 2019, you can find Warren drafting and co-sponsoring resolutions blasting Israeli government security policies. In February, she engaged in a total character assassination of the Israeli prime minister, claiming that Mr. Netanyahu is a criminal who is “embracing right-wing extremism” and “manipulating a free press.”
Of course, Sen. Warren is just one of many 2020 Democrats who have completely abandoned our most vital Middle East ally to accommodate the loud, leftist, pro-Palestinian extremists that make up part of the Democratic base.
Jordan Schachtel is a foreign policy analyst and investigative reporter.