Ramy Yousef and Chuck Schumer.
I am a great fan of comedian Ramy Yousef.
I really enjoyed his series Ramy on Hulu as well as his stand-up special on the same streaming channel.
I forced myself to stay up Saturday night to watch his opening monologue on SNL and I wasn’t disappointed. Yousef was funny and pointed.
He included a call for a free Palestine in an anecdote about the subject of his Muslim prayers.
The New York studio audience loudly applauded.
Fred Klonsky in Retirement is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Yousef’s support of Palestine is widely known. He was among the stars at the Oscars sporting a red lapel pin symbolizing the call for ceasefire in the genocidal war on Gaza and the West Bank.
Yet he was invited to host SNL anyway.
There has been a notable shift in American public opinion towards Israel.
The shift can be seen in the relative success of the “vote blank” and “vote uncommitted” campaigns in the Democratic primaries.
Democratic Party leaders are rightly concerned that those voting uncommitted or leaving the presidential line blank (as in the New York primary going on this week) will carry over to the November general election against Trump.
If that happens in just a few swing states it will hand the election over to the MAGAs and that’s not a good outcome for anybody.
So it is not surprising to me that the Dems in charge are paying some attention to this.
A few weeks ago Senate leader Chuck Schumer gave a speech on the floor calling for the removal of Netanyahu from office.
Many wondered whether this represented a split in the Democratic Party leadership.
At the time I found it hard to imagine that Schumer would have given that speech without first running it by Biden and the DNC.
In fact, a few days later both Biden and Kamila Harris said they agreed with Schumer.
Of course, nothing in Schumer’s speech suggested a reduction in support for the state of Israel itself or any long-term commitment for change in the status of Palestine or the status of the indigenous Palestinian people.
Still, in respect to the current Israeli scorched earth campaign, the Schumer speech was good, reflecting the shift in public opinion in support of a permanent ceasefire.
Criticism of Netanyahu while supporting Israeli policies toward Palestinians is not a new thing.
But despite Democrats’ repeated suggestion that Netanyahu is the impetus for Israel’s war, political analysts say that in reality the prime minister’s actions are in step with Israel’s political mainstream. “Schumer is operating in this fantasy that if you get rid of Netanyahu, you might be able to get somebody else who’s more moderate who could then save the relationship between the US and Israel under the pretense of support for progressive values and democracy,” said Omar Baddar, a Palestinian American political analyst. But this narrative ignores how Israeli politicians almost across the board agree with Israel’s conduct in Gaza, as do the majority of Israelis. Yair Lapid, the former prime minister and head of the Israeli opposition, supports the ongoing assault, as does war cabinet member Benny Gantz, Netanyahu’s main political rival and the man who, according to polling, would become prime minister if Israel held elections today. Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy and a former foreign policy adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders, noted that many Democrats might welcome Gantz replacing Netanyahu, but the change of guard would alter little about Israel’s conduct in Gaza. “There is a danger to the idea that replacing Netanyahu will fix everything. It will not,” Duss said. “It could create a grace period where bad things continue to happen, but the US feels better about it. We need to oppose that.”
Instead of constituting a substantive shift in US support for Israel, experts say, Democrats’ emboldened critique of Netanyahu should be understood as an attempt to respond to growing voter frustration without changing policy, as the Biden administration remains unwilling to use US aid and arms exports to Israel as leverage to demand a change in behavior. In this context, the choice to focus on Netanyahu “is a political decision to avoid outright criticism of Israel’s war conduct,” said Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. For Schumer, in particular, blaming Netanyahu as an individual was a way “to avoid the implication that he is lessening his support for the Israeli state or the Israeli people,” she said. “Instead, Schumer is focusing on a man who is unpopular among Democrats to say, ‘See, we are standing up for our values, so voters should stop being mad at us.’”