Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman said Thursday he would leave the Democratic Party if it formally\u00a0adopted\u00a0a platform\u00a0opposing\u00a0US\u00a0aid to Israel, calling such a move a \u201cred line\u201d following a House vote on legislation that sought to eliminate assistance to the Jewish state.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fetterman\u2019s comments came after lawmakers defeated a measure to end US\u00a0aid to Israel.\u00a0Nearly all\u00a0Republicans and a narrow majority of Democrats voted against the bill.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they put that in our platform\u2014no aid for Israel\u2014and officially become the anti-Israel party, then yeah, that\u2019s a red line for me,\u201d Fetterman told NBC News on Thursday. \u201cDemocrats, we\u2019ve always should support Israel.\u00a0That\u2019s\u00a0our special ally, you know? In the only democracy in the entire region, that\u2019s Israel.\u00a0So\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0always proud to stand with Israel.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He also said he could not support a party that officially abandoned Israel.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be a problem for me if the Democratic Party officially says, \u2018Israel is the problem, Israel doesn\u2019t deserve to exist, and I\u2019m never going to support aid, and I\u2019m not going to call out Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran as terrorists, and they are the problem in the region,\u2019\u201d Fetterman said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fetterman did not say whether he would join the Republican Party or serve as an independent if he left the Democrats.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Such a move would not be without precedent. Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema both became independents while continuing to caucus with Democrats before retiring at the end of their respective Senate terms.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The debate follows a House vote Wednesday in which 103 Democrats supported an amendment by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., to cut off US\u00a0aid to Israel. Republicans overwhelmingly voted against the proposal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The issue reflects broader divisions within the Democratic Party. Younger Democrats have become increasingly sympathetic to Palestinians rather than Israelis, and a recent Pew Research Center poll found that 71% of younger Democrats hold unfavorable views of Israel.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman said Thursday he would leave the Democratic Party if it formally\u00a0adopted\u00a0a platform\u00a0opposing\u00a0US\u00a0aid to Israel,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-545891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}