Three days after Iran launched missiles against the Jewish state in April 2024, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said the Islamic Republic’s “unprecedented attack on Israel following Israel’s strike in Damascus represents an escalation in this conflict that I strongly condemn.”
It took the member of the far-left “Squad” in Congress four days to comment this time on Israel’s preemptive attack on the Iranian regime. “Signing on,” the congresswoman wrote on Monday night, in response to Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) introducing a resolution barring Washington from entering the war.
Many Democratic lawmakers have supported Israel publicly as it attacks Iranian nuclear and other military sites. However, Ocasio-Cortez’s comment was an unusual response to the attacks from someone being discussed as a potential Democratic presidential hopeful in 2028.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, passed over by Vice President Kamala Harris as her running mate when she took over the campaign reins from former President Joe Biden last fall, is another exception as an expected 2028 candidate. Shapiro, who is Jewish, said last week at a country club in a Pittsburgh suburb that Iran, “the largest state sponsor of terror,” is “a destabilizing force in the world,” the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported.
Shapiro added that it’s “probably a good day for the world” that Israel is dismantling Iran’s nuclear arsenal, “but make no mistake, we do not want an all-out war in the Middle East,” the paper reported.
A JNS review found that others being discussed as Democratic candidates in 2028 have not commented on the targeted Israeli airstrikes and Iran’s attacks on Israeli civilians, including Harris, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Rahm Emanuel, the former mayor of Chicago. (Newsom and Harris condemned the two missile barrages on Israel by Iran last year, one in April and one in October.)
Henry Olsen, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, told JNS that statements from Shapiro and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) “are excellent examples of the nuanced statements that offend neither side in the internal debate.”
“They tilt towards Israel and against Iran without explicitly endorsing the attacks or indicating what they might have done had they been president,” said Olsen, who hosts the “Beyond the Polls” podcast.
“Booker’s emphasis on a nuclear deal suggests his approach would be to try to reinsert the JCPOA, which, of course, Biden tried to do for four years unsuccessfully,” he added. (The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is the 2015 Iran deal negotiated by the Obama administration.)
‘Not a serious contender’
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’s running mate and a rumored 2028 candidate, spoke last week about the Israeli airstrikes on Iran.
“Iran has to retaliate in their mind, I’m sure, and now who is the voice in the world that can negotiate some type of agreement in this?” the governor said. “Who holds the moral authority? Who holds the ability to do that? Because we are not seen as a neutral actor.”
Walz suggested that “it might be the Chinese, and that goes against everything they say they’re trying to do in terms of the balance of power.”
Olsen told JNS that Walz’s remarks show “that he’s not a serious contender for national office.”
Dan Schnur, who lectures on political science at Pepperdine University, the University of Southern California and the University of California, Berkeley, told JNS that he has “not seen much from the potential Democratic candidates on this front” but has found congressional Democrats “unsurprisingly divided on the war.”
Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) slammed some of his Democratic colleagues in the Senate for criticizing Israel’s strikes against Iran in an interview with Jewish Insider.
“This reflects the similar division among Democratic voters about the Middle East,” Schnur told JNS. “Any party leader has to balance the anti-Israel sentiments of their progressive base with the Zionist legacy of the party establishment.”
“For a candidate or elected official trying to unite the Democratic Party, they know that this is not the issue that will do it,” Schnur said.
Olsen told JNS that “Fetterman is an unlikely Democratic candidate for president, but it’s important to note how much intra-party criticism he has endured for his unapologetic statements in favor of Israel.”
“Democratic voters, especially Democratic primary voters, are largely split on whether they have positive views regarding Israel,” he said, adding that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “and his government are especially unpopular among Democratic voters, even among most who overall support Israel in its regional conflicts.”
“Any Democrat who unreservedly endorses Israel’s attack in Iran, then, takes a large risk that they might alienate a substantial portion of the party’s most loyal and frequent voters,” Olsen said.
‘Stay quiet’
Generally speaking, “no Democrat occupying the White House in the foreseeable future can unreservedly support Israel in its regional relations,” regardless of who the Israeli prime minister is, Olsen told JNS.
He cited April data from the Pew Research Center suggesting that among Democrats and those who lean left, “69% have a negative view of Israel, and 53% believe that a two-state solution to the Palestinian question is possible.”
“Democratic voters do not want unconditional support of Israel and tend to lean toward putting pressure on Israel to make concessions to Fatah, and on Gaza, that Israeli politics cannot endorse,” he told JNS.
Any Democrat who wins in 2028 will likely follow the party’s voters, “even if they personally are more sympathetic towards Israel’s geo-strategic challenges,” Olsen said.
“If someone unabashedly from the party’s left flank gains the White House, expect to see unacceptable levels of pressure put on Israel and perhaps a cutoff of U.S. military aid,” he told JNS.
The overwhelming silence from likely Democratic candidates in 2028 “shows how hard it is for Democrats to make clear statements on any matter involving Israel’s use of force,” Olsen said. “More prudent to stay quiet and see how events unfold.”
Sam Markstein, national political director and communications director at the Republican Jewish Coalition, told JNS that “the silence from prominent Democrats as Israel defends itself from the terrorist regime in Iran is deafening.”
“Republicans, from President Donald Trump on down, are proudly and loudly standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the Jewish state,” he said. “Support for Israel should be bipartisan, especially when they are fighting an existential war to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.”
“This is a war of good versus evil, and sadly, today’s Democratic Party seems increasingly incapable of discerning the difference,” he added.
Getting up on stage at any Republican event anywhere in the country and saying “I stand with Israel” gets an “automatic applause line,” according to Markstein.
“If you tried that at a Democratic event, you’d be booed off the stage,” Markstein said. “Unfortunately, this isn’t new for the Democratic Party. Remember, at the Democratic National Convention in 2012, the hall in Charlotte erupted in boos against simply reaffirming Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in their party platform.”
At the 2024 GOP convention in Milwaukee, Matt Brooks, the coalition’s CEO, received “rapturous” applause when he said, “Let me hear you cheer if you support Israel,” according to Markstein.
“The contrast is stark,” he said. “It’s a major reason why more and more Jewish Americans are moving to the Republican Party election after election.”