California Democrats reportedly considered a resolution at their party conference this weekend in San Francisco that blames Israel for antisemitism, and links the Jewish state indirectly to violent incidents at synagogues in the United States.
The resolution, Fox News reports, is one of several that the party conference was presented on Israel: “Some of the draft resolutions would mandate that Democrat officials work to ‘nullify’ President Trump’s pro-Israel policies. One document directs party officials to take a subsidized trip to Israel only ‘if they undertake to devote an equal amount of time to visiting Palestinian towns, villages and refugee camps in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.'”
The thinking behind the resolution linking Israel to antisemitic violence is apparently follows: the Israeli government is friendly to the Trump administration, due to its pro-Israel policies; President Donald Trump is allegedly supported by violent antisemitic racists (even though both of the synagogue shooters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Poway, California, hated Trump for supporting Israel and Jews); therefore, Israel is responsible for antisemitic violence.
In the words of the resolution itself, as quoted by Fox News:
The document calls the October synagogue shooting “the culmination of an alarming re-emergence of virulent antisemitism that is a core element of historical and currently resurgent white supremacism in the United States and around the world.” The “Israeli government, along with some of its U.S. backers,” the resolution continues, “welcomed support from Christian fundamentalist and ultra-right groups in the United States and abroad, dangerously ignoring their deeply rooted antisemitism while aligning with their virulent Islamophobia.”
The author of the resolution is reportedly a left-wing Jewish Democrat, David Mandel, who is part of Jewish Voice for Peace, a radical group that hosted convicted Palestinian terrorist Rasmea Odeh before her deportation from the U.S.
A group calling itself the Progressive Zionists of California reportedly urged delegates not to vote for the resolution. It is unclear, as of the time of this writing, what the fate of the resolution, and others on the Israel issue will be.
Fourteen of the party’s 23 presidential candidates are to make an appearance at this weekend’s state party convention. California’s primary has been moved from June to March to give the state a greater role in selecting the nominee.
Update: The California Democratic Party reportedly “softened” the language of some of its resolutions on Israel.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.