Thanks to Gaza, It's Now Kosher to Criticize Israel
Daniel W. Drezner is academic dean and distinguished professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He is the author of Drezner's World .
Earlier this month I attended an open town hall for my congressman, Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts. Since he's a moderate Democrat in a district that has been reliably Democrat for some time now, I expected that the bulk of the questions Auchincloss would receive would be variations of 'Why aren't you fighting Trump harder?' Indeed, Auchincloss' opening remarks were typical Democratic talking points including defending the Constitution, reinvigorating the Democratic Party and getting America talking again. While some constituent questions revolved around those topics as well, they were not the primary subject.
The most common question from one of the most heavily Jewish congressional districts in the country was some variation of, 'What are you going to do about the starvation in Gaza?'
Auchincloss is not the only representative to face angry questions about Gaza at his town halls. Furthermore, the responses to Auchincloss' stilted, minimalist answers (starvation is bad; being pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian should not be mutually contradictory; Hamas has a singular responsibility to end the conflict) indicated that while there were some supporters of the current Israeli government in the audience, they were badly outnumbered by critics of Israel — and U.S. support for Israel.
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