Among the things that Abdul El-Sayed’s victory last night in the Michigan Senate race revealed is this: the debate over US policy toward Israel does not primarily pit the left versus the right. It pits the top versus the bottom.

There was no grassroots enthusiasm in the state for maintaining US military aid and weapons sales to Israel. That view no longer commands support even among ordinary Republicans. There was instead a massive infusion of pro-Israel money, mostly from extremely wealthy people.

Abdul El-Sayed’s opponents –Haley Stevens and Mike Rogers– were vehicles for that infusion, and for other corporate interests, which is why they came off as so hollow. El-Sayed poked fun at how few people attended Rogers’ rallies because it illustrated the lack of popular energy in his campaign.

In Michigan, support for Israel was a kind of political hologram. But the media often made it seem real. Commentators tended to depict El-Sayed’s criticism of Israel as a liability when the polls actually showed him winning voters who cared about the issue by an even larger margin than he won overall.

Why did so much coverage get this wrong? Because in the media, the divisions over Israel are top........

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