July 31, 2026
Muslim Democrats and Israel
Ever since the Hamas-Israel war started on October 6, 2023, there has been a sea change in the attitudes of Democrats toward Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s hard-right Prime Minister laid the groundwork for this by tying Israel closer to the Republican party over the last 10 years, and especially with Donald Trump.
While support for Israel has been a bipartisan constant since the creation of the state, this bipartisan consensus has broken down. The wanton destruction of Gaza by Israel over the last 2+ years has made many Democrats recoil in horror. Over 70,000 Palestinians have died, about 50,000 of whom were civilians. Netanyahu did not strike Hamas and quickly end the war, he engaged in a grinding destruction of the entire Gaza Strip. It is notable that Israel defeated Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in six days in 1967, but Israel has not defeated Hamas in over 30 months.
This was a predictable outcome of Netanyahu’s strategy. He did not want to defeat Hamas and seize control of Gaza, because he would then have to take seriously what comes next. That would logically be withdrawal of Israeli soldiers and the Palestinian Authority taking over governance and rebuilding of Gaza, and then commence negotiations to end the conflict by creating Palestine out of the West Bank and Gaza. Netanyahu’s constant goal in politics for the last 30 years has been to prevent the creation of Palestine.
Hamas richly deserves blame for starting this round of the conflict, and they like Netanyahu reject compromise. Their whole raison d’etre has been to destroy the Jewish state and undo the ethnic cleansing of 1948, giving Palestinians full control of the land from the “river to the sea”, as some of their supporters chant.
Democrats as a whole have seen support for Israel plummet, and polls now show more Democrats are sympathetic to the Palestinians than the Israelis. Among the most liberal Democrats, Israel has acquired a toxic reputation. In recent Democratic primaries in New York City for Congressional seats, critics of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) defeated supporters of AIPAC in three races. Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim American, was elected mayor of New York, the city with the most Jews in the world outside of Israel. In Michigan, the primary for Democrats for the Senate seat features Abdul El-Sayed, who is polling very well. He too is running as a very liberal Democrat and a critic of Israel, while AIPAC is pouring in money to boost his rival.
The question facing Muslim Democrats is how to position themselves on the issue of Israel. For the vast majority of Muslims, sympathy lies with the Palestinians, particularly the refugees of the ethnic cleansing of 1948 and their several million descendants. For most Muslims, the creation of Israel was morally illegitimate as it did not properly account for the views of the Palestinians, who made up 65% of the population of Palestine at the time of British withdrawal from the Mandate under which they ruled Palestine as a colony. Zionist Jews see the history differently and insist on the moral legitimacy of Israel, placing the blame on the Palestinians for not accepting the partition and on the Arab neighbors for maintaining a hostile stance toward Israel that led to the 1967 war.
Supporters of both sides will never agree on the meaning of the past. There is no shared historical narrative, both sides have their versions of history in which the other is the villain and their own actions are justified. Muslim Democrats should not get involved in these conflicts over the past, it serves no useful purpose, and it is impossible to get committed Zionists to change their mind. What Muslim Democrats should do instead is to look to the future. How should this conflict be ended?
It is not enough to talk about cutting off aid to Israel, or even banning weapons sales. Israel has a large, advanced economy and can either make or buy the weapons it needs with or without the US. The Palestinians will not be free as a result of any such policy choices. What needs to happen is what was promised in the Oslo Accords of 1993. It is also what the whole world has endorsed as almost every nation on Earth now officially recognizes the state of Palestine. The Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank must be given their freedom in their own nation and Israel must withdraw to the 1967 borders. The 700,000 settlers Israel has illegally planted on the West Bank need to go back home, or they can stay but do so as equal citizens of Palestine.
Muslim Democrats do not need to back “Zionism” in order to support a two-state solution. The parallels of this to the partition of India is instructive. There was a sharp divide between the Congress Party (Gandhi and Nehru) who wanted India to be decolonized as a single nation state, and the Muslim League (Jinnah) that wanted to divide India into majority Muslim and Hindu states. Jinnah’s argument was known as the “two-nation theory” in which South Asia held within it two nations, one Hindu and the other Muslim. Congress rejected the two-nation theory in 1947, and Indians reject it to this day. They believe the founding ideology of Pakistan was wrong. But Jinnah held the view that if Muslims were forced to live in India as a minority, they would always be second class citizens. Looking at the status of Muslims today in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India, it is obvious to Muslims that Jinnah was right. He reluctantly threw 3 parts of India’s Muslims “to the wolves” to save 7 parts that got their own country. While India officially rejects the theory that Pakistan and Bangladesh are based on, this does not prevent India from “recognizing” Pakistan and having normal diplomatic relations. India has no desire to forcibly conquer and absorb Bangladesh and Pakistan and has accepted this is the geopolitical outcome in South Asia. Similarly, Muslim Americans do not have to accept Zionism and its assumptions to accept the reality of a two-state solution in Palestine. It may not be fair, but it is the best possible outcome that is politically realistic.
Muslims are playing a larger and larger role in American politics. They are seriously contending for very high offices. The vast majority of Muslims are Democrats and hold liberal views on most issues. With respect to Israel, Muslim Democrats need to think seriously about not just what they oppose, but what they support. It is not enough to criticize the Israelis and Netanyahu, a positive vision of the future must also be put forth.
The Israelis and Palestinians have twice come close to negotiating a two-state solution. The first time was Taba in January 2001 and the second was at Annapolis in 2007. Since then, no Israeli government has seriously engaged the Palestinians on how to resolve this conflict. Never ending occupation of 5 million Palestinians by 7 million Israeli Jews is not tenable. It has to eventually give way. The current setup is no different than apartheid, and in some ways, it is worse as under apartheid Black South Africans at least had legal citizenship.
The current war with Iran, which has entered its sixth month, is closely tied to the Palestinian cause. The war is driven by Israel’s fear that Iran could develop and use a nuclear bomb. But if Israel was at peace with the Palestinians, and with the rest of the Arab world, there would be no reason to fear Iran, nor would Iran have need to pursue a bomb. These crises are linked, which is why no peace can come to the Middle East until the Palestinians have their freedom.
