Democrats Boycott Parts of Newly-elected Israeli Government

Senate Democrats currently visiting Israel asked not to meet with leaders of religious and nationalist parties who were newly elected to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, effectively boycotting them.

The Times of Israel reported on Tuesday:

A delegation of US senators that arrived in Israel on Tuesday asked not to meet with far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir or any members of their hardline factions, according to an Israeli official.

The [boycott] request was made by the office of Democratic Senator Jacky Rosen [of Nevada], who is co-leading the bipartisan delegation along with Republican Senator James Lankford, the Israeli official told The Times of Israel, confirming a report on the Axios news site.

…

The fact that the request not to meet with Smotrich and Ben Gvir came from Rosen, who is seen as one of the Democratic caucus’s most pro-Israel members, also demonstrates how widespread the unease in Washington is, particularly within Biden’s party.

Axios originally reported that Sen. Rosen and other Democrats want to exclude Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, and their parties from attending meetings with the American delegation even within the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.

Ben-Gvir is the Minister of National Security and Smotrich is the Minister of Finance. Smotrich also controls policy pertaining to Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”) within the Ministry of Defense.

Both were elected thanks to a public backlash against the previous, left-wing government. Their “Religious Zionist” coalition of parties came third in the election, winning 14 seats and well over 10% of the vote of the electorate as a whole.

Rosen campaigned for her party last year by casting Republican candidates as “election deniers” and claiming to defend democracy: “Our democracy is literally on the ballot this year,” she tweeted.

Rather than meet with Ben-Gvir and Smotrich to discuss their differences, Rosen and the Democrats preferred to boycott, and appeared unconcerned about the precedent that might set.

In 2021, Rosen traveled to Qatar, one of the most repressive dictatorships in the world, and met with the emir.

In 2019, Israel barred Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) from visiting due to a law that prevents entry by those who support international boycotts of Israel. Both support the antisemitic “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions” (BDS) movement that singles out Israel, and not the Palestinians, for isolation.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.