I'm a proud Democrat. My party has an antisemitism problem

To me, it’s simple – if you cannot denounce terrorism in all its forms, there should be no place for you in the Democratic Party.

By that standard, several of my fellow Democrats lost their place in this party over the weekend after their horrific responses to the barbaric terrorist attacks Hamas unleashed on innocent Israelis Saturday morning.

In some ill-fated attempt to appease the completely nonexistent pro-terrorist Muslim community in suburban Detroit, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer tweeted, "I have been in touch with communities impacted by what’s happening in the region. It is abhorrent. My heart is with all those impacted. We need peace in this region."

Rep. Rashida Tlaib speaks at a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 19, 2023. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

This ham-fisted attempt to avoid saying Israel, Hamas and terrorism in a statement addressing those three topics reminded me of Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s decontextualized 2019 remarks describing the 9/11 attacks as "some people did something."

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Unlike Omar, Whitmer couldn’t claim to be taken out of context. That was the entirety of her tweet.

But Whitmer wasn’t the only Michigan Democrat to completely fumble their response to perhaps the worst terrorist attack around the globe since 2001.

Most notable was Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., who, in a lengthy statement, called for"dismantling the apartheid system that creates the suffocating, dehumanizing conditions that can lead to resistance." Later in the text, she said the United States must cut off Israel's aid.

This response is pure victim blaming. Most Democrats, especially young Democrats, agree that the Israeli government’s blockade of the Gaza Strip is unjust and cruel, especially toward children, who comprise nearly half of the Palestinian population. 

But that injustice doesn’t give the pro-Palestinian Left license to explain away the mass killing, raping and kidnapping of Israeli citizens as justifiable "resistance" activities.

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As journalist Julia Ioffe put it, "If you’re against the collective punishment of Palestinians, you should also be against the collective punishment of Israelis."

When the pro-Palestinian Left doesn’t voice total opposition to the massacre of Israeli citizens, even as they affirm the rights of Palestinians, they lose their moral standing and surrender the values of justice and human rights they claim are at the center of their movement.

One can point to the root causes of terrorism without condoning it. In Tlaib’s words, all "resistance" activities aren’t justified – the blood still on the streets of southern Israel bears witness to this reality. 

Thankfully, Tlaib isn’t in charge of the Democratic Party, and Joe Biden is. His joint statement with five world leaders on Monday night made it clear that this government stands against Hamas’ terrorists and with the people of Israel:

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"All of us recognize the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people and support equal measures of justice and freedom for Israelis and Palestinians alike. But make no mistake: Hamas does not represent those aspirations and offers nothing for the Palestinian people other than more terror and bloodshed." 

President Biden shows the way. You can support Palestinian freedom, distrust Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and denounce Hamas’ terrorism. In fact, if you don’t do the latter, you hurt the overall cause for freedom.

Some Democrats were willing to chide their party colleagues for their nonsense publicly. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Bronx Congressman Ritchie Torres each denounced a pro-Hamas Democratic Socialist of Americas (DSA) rally in Times Square that featured a young man holding up and showing off a Nazi flag image on his phone.

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The 35-year-old Torres' remarks were particularly poignant. He called the rally "an antisemitic stain on the soul of America’s largest city" and accused the DSA of glorifying the terrorism of Hamas as "resistance." He said that the lives of Israeli civilians and children murdered, wounded, abducted and terrorized by Hamas meant nothing to the DSA.

There's a fight for the future of the Democratic Party already underway. And to me, it's clear Torres' way is the only way to go because a Democratic Party led by figures like Rashida Tlaib is a party rightly without a future in the United States.

Christopher Hale was the 2020 Democratic nominee for Congress in Tennessee's 4th District, a Biden Democratic National Convention delegate, and an alumnus of the Obama-Biden White House and campaign.