Biden faces an angry rift in his own party over Israeli-Palestinian conflict
So much attention has been focused on the rift in the GOP over former President Donald Trump’s antidemocratic lies about the 2020 election.
But Democrats have their own brewing disagreement over how the US should react to violence between Israelis and Palestinians, leading Democrats to question President Joe Biden’s commitment to human rights and demanding he do more to pressure Israel.
It’s an awkward public fight for a party that has made its commitment to social and racial justice a main part of its platform. As the US comes to grips with its own history of racism in new ways and adopts the Black Lives Matter movement in a mainstream way, liberals want to apply similar notions of justice to foreign policy, where an increasing number see apartheid in Israel’s approach to the Palestinians.
Vocal liberals have criticized the White House for placating Israel and ignoring human rights as violence mounts, as well as loudly criticizing Biden for not openly opposing Israel’s planned evictions of Palestinian families from a neighborhood in east Jerusalem. [Continue reading…]