Liran Kapoano

Spent a few minutes reading comments from winning Democratic candidates about Israel... and found some interesting, surprising results. I could only find three winning Senate candidates who openly and falsely accused Israel of genocide (El-Sayed, Flanagan, and Jackson) and two House candidates in competitive races (Lawrence, MI-7, and Villegas in CA). All except Villegas underperformed vis-à-vis other Democrats, though I don't think it's because of their comments about Israel (I'm sure there are others who said it, but I'm on a train so this is not an exhaustive search). But among Democrats in competitive Senate races, I couldn't find any who made the accusation. Hamilton in KS and Ossoff in GA refuted it (though Ossoff accused Israel of war crimes). However, all of them, like Turek and Talarico, were critical of Israel. If Andrews said anything about Israel, I couldn't find it (same for Colom). Brown, Cooper, and Peltola were more supportive of Israel than the rest. But what's more interesting is that in Blue states that had competitive primaries, like Illinois and Massachusetts, Markey and Stratton avoided the "g" word, though Markey accused Israel of "war crimes." Interestingly, Stratton was asked the genocide question at a debate and refused to answer yes. In New Hampshire, Pappas's opponent accused Israel of genocide, but he did not (again, I'm sure I'm missing a few here). To be clear, many Democrat candidates criticized Netanyahu; several accused it of committing war crimes, and a good number said they wanted to end offensive arms sales to Israel ... but pretty much all of them reiterated support for a Jewish State, a two-state solution, Israel's right to defend itself, and backed Iron Dome funding. None of that leads me to think that a Jewish candidate, like Shapiro, who is supportive but critical of Israel, would face major impediments to the Democratic presidential nomination.