The mask slips, and a Democratic senator expresses the views of his colleagues and voters.
Israel is a funny country. When you think of the size, wealth, and resources of the United States, you appreciate that Israel is amazing but small in comparison to its superpower ally. When I first told my wife about “Memorial Day Sales” and same-day baseball games in the U.S., she thought I was nuts. Memorial Day in Israel is scheduled one day prior to Israel Independence Day, which moves around the Gregorian calendar, as it is fixed according to its Hebrew date: the fifth day of the month Iyar. Memorial Day is not something abstract, as everyone in Israel either has someone close who was killed in a war or a terror attack, or definitely knows someone who died in such a manner. Whereas in the U.S., post-draft, many people don’t even know a single person presently in the armed services. It is a staid occasion, with funeral music on the radio and generally sad interviews on television programming. The military cemeteries are packed with families coming to visit and attend formal programs from the IDF and its rabbinate. Going to the beach, playing loud, happy music, or making a barbecue is considered bad form.
Then, as the sun sets, the independence events begin in earnest. The main event is on Mt. Herzl, where they set up a stadium around Theodore Herzl’s grave. The program is more or less the same every year, and from the president and prime minister down, the "who’s who" of Israeli politics and power are sitting, often freezing, in the makeshift bleachers. A central event of the evening is the lighting of 12 torches, representing the 12 tribes of Israel as described in the Torah. The event allows for the selection of individuals who are accomplished and also represent a certain sector of Israeli society. So a very successful Iranian Jew was chosen to light, as was a Druze fellow. A high-tech investor represented his sector, while a rabbinical judge who also drives a D9 tractor for the IDF was chosen to show the combination of Torah and national service. The one who stole the show was Javier Milei, the president of Argentina. He’s a rock star at home, and he is a rock star in Israel. He expressed his love for the country, and the people expressed it right back.
While the individuals chosen spoke about their specific lives and fields, there was one overriding theme. Whether it was the successful chef who has Michelin stars in Europe or the soldier who lost both legs and an arm in Gaza, all of the lighters expressed a wish for a more united Israel. Each said it in his or her own way, but they all said that while Israel has a quite diverse population, the needs of the hour require that there be unity of the people for safety and success. Just as a person swears that he will lose 20 pounds on New Year’s Eve and then swears again the same the following year, since the creation of the modern state of Israel, there has been a wish for greater unity between religious and non-religious, Sephardi and Ashkenazi, locals and immigrants. The wish may not be realized or not realized fully, but the expression is reflective of the people that there should be more unity and less division. The first guy who got to us after the suicide bombing was a young professional dancer who had been a medic in the army. Under such circumstances, anyone who can help is your new best friend.
Now, let’s jet over from Tel Aviv to Washington. When Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) responded to an apparently fake Iranian X post that 26 ships had gotten past the U.S. blockade with the word “awesome,” one of the major problems in the U.S. today was laid bare for all to see. Yes, a large chunk of the media and the Democratic Party are rooting against their own country. Sure, in Israel, they have arrested a couple of people for spying for Iran, and the Left hates Bibi as its counterpart in the U.S. hates Trump. But in the U.S., the official position of the Democrats and their voters is that the U.S. losing would be good. Tom Friedman of The New York Times came out and said it directly: he would really like to crush the Iranian regime, but not if it would help Trump and Netanyahu. Murphy tried to walk back his traitorous comments: “I was having this incredible burrito, and I wrote on my phone, ‘Awesome!’ without noticing that I accidentally replied to the IRGC.” Or something to that effect. The U.S. has had its share of traitors and fifth columnists. But what we have today is a very large percentage of people who don’t want Donald Trump to win, even if it means the U.S. losing. We have already seen various sectors of the Democratic coalition that see the U.S. as something to be abused. Somalis took billions from Uncle Sam, and it would appear that California is going for the Guinness World Record for fraud. The protests against ICE and for Hamas—generally the same people being paid by the same people—have one simple theme: we hate the U.S. Let the illegals stay and provide them with everything they want. Hamas is good because it killed Jews, now stop giving them Jews weapons to fight back.
Anti-Americanism on the Left is not new, and certainly the protests during the time of Vietnam and Watergate were not, “My country first!” It was rather, “We don’t like your policies, and thus we don’t like our country.” Everyone in or near power admitted that Iran was an enemy of the United States. Everyone—except the fools who said that they had a fatwa!—agreed that Iran was working to get a bomb. Everyone agreed that Iran with a bomb would be a cataclysmic risk to the world. Yet, when Donald Trump sent the B2 bombers last year to do what Israeli fighters could not, the Democrats were not patriotically proud but rather furious. And with the more recent fighting presently on a kinetic pause, they have been actively rooting for the mullahs and against U.S. forces. One can have a country where there are disagreements. One cannot have a country where some large percentage of the people hate their country and would rather have it destroyed. What is the effect of bringing in tens of millions of illegal aliens if not to destroy that which was commonly known as the United States? What is the effect of letting Iran saunter toward a bomb if not to lead to the actual physical destruction of some part of the United States? What is the ultimate goal of rooting against the sitting president when he is not from your party? Whatever happened to a “loyal opposition”? Elections have consequences only when Democrats win them; when Republicans win, it’s Soros-funded “resistance time.”
The Democrats, in their “anything but Trump” tantrum, have become haters of the United States. Why should illegal aliens have benefits that are not given to American citizens? Why should workers have their wages depressed or pay more to rent a house because Democrats want a new majority composed heavily of people in the country illegally? The Democrats don’t want to make a better U.S.; rather, they want to make the U.S. another useless and dysfunctional Europe. There should be limits to political dissent. Not so for Awesome Murphy and his compatriots.