On Friday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Inside Politics,” Democratic U.S. House nominee Brad Lander said that “a reset in the U.S.-Israel relationship” and insisting “we’re going to insist on human rights and international law compliance, and we’re going to stop aid until that happens” will be a litmus test among Democrats in the 2028 presidential primary.
Host Dana Bash asked, “[T]here are, I think, at least a trio, maybe more, of potential candidates in 2028 who are Jewish. You have Josh Shapiro, Governor of Pennsylvania, JB Pritzker, Illinois, Sen. Ossoff (D-GA), and Rahm Emanuel, they’re all critical of Prime Minister Netanyahu, but they all believe in Israel’s right to exist and have stopped short of calling what’s happening in Gaza a genocide. Do you think that somebody with those views and that religion could be the nominee for president in the Democratic Party?”
Lander responded, “I do. I think it’s going to require clarity that we need a reset in the U.S. relationship with Israel. I think saying we’re not going to continue to provide the 2,000-pound bombs that destroyed Gaza, that we’re going to insist on human rights and international law compliance, and we’re going to stop aid until that happens, and that Israel has to step up to recognizing that what’s necessary is self-determination for Palestinians and Israelis, a horizon of political mutual recognition and peace. Look, and I’m happy to explain to any of them why I think Raphael Lemkin, the Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor who developed the term genocide, the Lemkin Institute considers what’s happening there a genocide, like Omer Bartov, an amazing Israeli Holocaust scholar –.”
Bash then cut in to ask, “So, is that a litmus test?”
Lander answered, “I don’t think it’s a litmus test. I think it’s something useful for people to look at and grapple and reckon with. We’ve spent thousands of years as the victims, it’s rough grappling with what it means, in some ways, to be a perpetrator. I think it’s a useful dialog for American Jews to have, but I don’t think it’s a litmus test in the presidential race. I do think a reset in the U.S.-Israel relationship is.”
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