Congressman Bowman's defeat reveals divisions in Democratic party over Israel policy - editorial

In a CBS interview this week, US congressman Jamaal Bowman – who faced a stinging defeat on Tuesday in a Democratic Party primary in New York’s 16th district – took the easy way out.

“If you don’t take a pro-Israel stance,” he bewailed, “people treat you as [if] something is wrong with you.”

No, congressman, people treat you this way if you deny that Hamas raped Israeli women on October 7; if you promote 9/11 conspiracy theories on a personal blog; if you vote against a resolution in Congress condemning Hamas less than three weeks after its attacks; if you pull a fire alarm in Congress just to delay a House vote, earning a rare censure from your colleagues; if you speak about the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in the way that the author of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion spoke about the Jews; if you blast Jews in your heavily Jewish district for living in Jewish neighborhoods; and if you go on a manic, f-bomb laced tirade at a campaign rally on Sunday more suited to a thug than a sitting member of the US House of Representatives.

That, Rep. Bowman, is why people think something is wrong with you.

This was also why Bowman, a high-profile member of a group of far-Left US legislators known as the Squad, was trounced in the primary by George Latimer, losing the race by some 17%, or about the same percentage with which Bowman defeated Eliot Engel in the Democratic primary in that same district in 2020. Latimer is all but certain to win in the general election in November in the heavily Democratic district.

As good as Engel was for Israel, Bowman was bad -- even before Oct. 7.

Bowman's history of anti-Israel sentiment

 In 2022, Bowman withdrew sponsorship for a bill strengthening the Abraham Accords. Then he co-sponsored a bill that would have had the US recognize the so-called Nakba Day, voted against a House resolution saying that Israel was not a “racist state,” and boycotted President Isaac Herzog’s Congress address.

Bowman was bad news for Israel even before he recently indicated that he would support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against the Jewish state and said that Israel was committing “genocide” in Gaza. No wonder, then, that the AIPAC-affiliated super PAC pumped record amounts of money into the campaign to defeat him.

The loud and attention-grabbing screeching made by a small group of anti-Israel voices in Congress, the anti-Israel demonstrations on campuses during the spring, and a disproportionate amount of time given to anti-Zionist Jewish voices in the media, created the impression that the anti-Israel wing of the Democratic Party – a wing identified with a radical, woke Left – is in the ascendancy.

The results in New York’s suburban 16th district demonstrated that it is not.

Bowman trotted out the far-Left marquee names to boost his campaign, including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (who gave her own manic performance at the Bowman rally on Sunday) – to no avail. The idea that their momentum was unstoppable, that they and their anti-Israel positions – which often drift into antisemitism – were the inevitable future of the Democratic Party, was heavily rained upon on Tuesday.

This is the first time since the “Squad” burst onto the scene in 2018 with Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley being elected that one of the members of this progressive, anti-Israel group was defeated. It may not be the last in this election cycle, either. Omar, for one, is facing significant primary challenges in August.

Bowman’s defeat also sends a message to other anti-Israel candidates and those running on an anti-Israel platform: It is not a recipe for success.

This race was widely seen as a referendum between the progressive and moderate wings of the Democratic Party, and the results are part of a national trend that has been favoring the moderate Democrats over the divisive, far-Left representatives in the party.

So, not only is Bowman’s defeat good for Israel – and, make no mistake, the trouncing of a congressman who was hostile toward Israel and who was working to undermine the US-Israel relationship is good for the state – it is also a good sign for the Democratic Party and for America as a whole.