There was a time when Ro Khanna boasted of “working with the American Jewish Committee and AIPAC to build ties between the Indo American and pro-Israel communities.” Gavin Newsom, as recently as last year, proclaimed his “deep reverence” for Israel. JB Pritzker even served on the board of AIPAC.

Now Khanna, a progressive California congressman, proudly calls the war in Gaza a genocide and refuses AIPAC dollars. Newsom, the California governor, recently called Israel an apartheid state and said he won’t take AIPAC donations either. Pritzker, who is Jewish, voiced support for a Senate resolution that would have blocked American arms sales to Israel.

What is becoming clear is that the 2028 Democratic primary for the presidency — still, in many respects, embryonic — will not look like any other in the modern era when it comes to how the candidates talk about Israel and the rest of the Middle East. Donald Trump’s bombing of Iran and the carnage from the war in Gaza have dramatically reshaped how the American left approaches Israel. A new NBC poll showed a stunning 57 percent of Democrats now take a negative view of Israel. Just 17 percent of Democrats sympathize with Israel in the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Before then, various other surveys have found younger voters souring on the Jewish state while the smashing mayoral victory of Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim democratic socialist, demonstrated it was possible for a pro-Palestine politician to win over an electorate with a large Jewish bloc.

The potential Democratic contenders are in the process of recalibrating — growing more emboldened in their Israel........

© Daily Intelligencer