Jonathan Tobin: Jerry Nadler Represents Decline of American Jewish Liberals

Retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) represents the decline of American Jewish liberals, both in terms of power within the Democratic Party, and moral courage on the issue of supporting Israel against terrorist enemies.

That’s the conclusion of Jonathan S. Tobin, editor-in-chief of the Jewish News Syndicate, on reviewing Nadler’s decision to retire after three decades in Congress, which he announced earlier this week.

Breitbart News has tracked Nadler’s retreat on the issue of Israel over the years. He went from supporting Israel in his younger years, to blaming Israel’s challenges on the government of conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and finally to opposing Israel’s very right of self-defense against Hamas, supporting an arms embargo. He also endorsed radically anti-Israel New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.

Tobin writes:

When being pro-Israel was seen as compatible with being a Democrat or even a natural position for someone in the party to take, there was no cost in doing so. But once the voices on the intersectional left became the loudest on that side of the aisle, politicians like Nadler began to back away from their former stances.

That was accelerated once Trump came down the escalator and into American lives in 2015. So great is the antagonism to the 45th/47th president that it became impossible for liberal Democrats to make common cause with him, even when he did things that they had long advocated for, such as moving the U.S. embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Nadler was a longtime supporter of the move; nevertheless, when Trump finally did it, he joined with the Israel-haters of J Street to oppose it.

…

We know what choice Jerry Nadler made as he put his finger up to the wind in recent years. He abandoned a principled pro-Israel position to pursue the favor of a party base that swallowed the big lie about the Palestinian war to destroy the only Jewish state on the planet being the moral equivalent of the struggle for civil rights in America. While a significant number of Jewish liberals are beginning to understand that their political home is rejecting them, many others, like Nadler, have chosen their party over the fight against antisemitism.

Nadler was more than a bystander, as Breitbart News pointed out in 2023: he actively encouraged protests within Israel against Netanyahu’s government over judicial reform. The reforms Netanyahu proposed were less radical, ironically, than the reforms Nadler was pursuing in the U.S., such as packing the Supreme Court.

Nadler met with Israeli opposition leaders but decided, finally to abandon them, too, to the threat of Hamas.