This has been a rough summer for pro-Israel Democrats. The Iran nuclear deal has put that subset of liberal Jews who are still passionate supporters of the Jewish state in what seemed to many of them to be an impossible dilemma. They could join with Republicans to oppose an agreement that did not fulfill the Obama administration’s promises to end the nuclear threat and instead strengthened the Islamist state. But in doing so they would be placing themselves in opposition to the head of their party With President Obama treating Iran as a litmus test of loyalty to his administration that was a step that a lot of Democrats couldn’t take. An indication of the pressure they have been feeling is the latest statement about Iran from Haim Saban, the billionaire media mogul who is one of the Democratic Party’s largest contributors. Though Saban had been quoted denouncing the accord as a “bad deal” that “we need to fight against,” the New York Times quotes him as now saying in an email that his views were taken out of context. He now says it is a “fait accompli” that must be accepted. The significance of this retreat cannot be overestimated. If even a major donor who has called himself a “one-issue guy and my issue is Israel,” doesn’t feel comfortable publicly opposing Obama, then it is time to acknowledge that the president’s efforts to distance the U.S. from Israel is also making the Democratic Party an uncomfortable place to be for supporters of the Jewish state.
To be fair, Saban isn’t abandoning Israel. To the contrary, he says that although he is waving the white flag about a deal that he calls “far from perfect,” he is now focused on trying to revive the alliance between the two countries on the day after the deal is passed. He says, “The United States and Israel, as staunch allies, should focus on the day after and cooperate to make sure that Iran never acquires nuclear weapons.” That’s all well and good but Saban, who is very close to the Clintons and among the leading backers of Hillary’s presidential candidacy, understands what the administration has done during the course of this debate.
From the moment it was signed, Obama has sought to cast opposition from mainstream pro-Israel groups like AIPAC as a sinister attempt by “lobbyists” to use their money to thwart something that was in the best interests of the United States. The administration has sought to isolate Israel and to pretend that only it was opposed the deal when it is no secret that most of the Arab world, which fears Iran as much as the Israelis, were just as opposed to it as Prime Minister Netanyahu. And it has subjected Democrats who dissented from the White House party line on Iran to the sort of threats and opprobrium that has led even those who have announced they will vote against it, like New York Senator Chuck Schumer, to say that they will not seek to persuade others to join them.
Saban is a man who has had his feet firmly planted in both the bipartisan pro-Israel consensus that backs AIPAC and Democratic Party politics. He has joined forces with Republican billionaire Sheldon Adelson to fund efforts to combat boycotts against Israel. But he is also a fierce partisan who has put his money behind the Clintons but eventually also helped Obama after he defeated Hillary in 2008.
Earlier this year, he publicly hinted that Clinton opposed the Iran deal. That may have been the result of the former secretary of state characteristically telling one of her big donors what he wanted to hear at the moment. But now that Hillary is behind the Iran deal, she appears to be dragging Saban along with her; a development that turns liberal beliefs about the way big donors influence politicians on their head.
Both Saban and Schumer are each in their own ways demonstrating how uncomfortable it is to be an ardent backer of Israel in a party led by Barack Obama. This administration has, from its first moments in office, believed that the most important principle of their dealings with Israel was to create “daylight” between it and the United States. That has led to more pressure on Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians that did nothing to advance the peace process. But that counter-productive strategy has now morphed into an all-out feud in which the White House has adopted the language of the Walt-Mearsheimer “Israel Lobby” thesis to stigmatize those who dare to oppose the president’s push for détente with Iran. Nothing, not the unwillingness of Iran to drop its support for terrorism or its push to eliminate Israel or the obvious flaws in a deal that will allow it to get a bomb after it expires in a decade, can be allowed to thwart the president’s signature foreign policy achievement.
Schumer is worried that by acting on the principles that he enunciated in his statement opposing the deal will sink his chances of being elected the Senate’s Democratic leader in the next term. The White House hasn’t discouraged those who are looking to punish Schumer for his vote and have given tacit approval to a vicious campaign denouncing him as a traitor. Backing down in this manner doesn’t qualify him for a new chapter in Profiles in Courage. But under the circumstances, it is understandable that a man who has spent his career aiming at this position would downplay his opposition to the deal in order to keep his dream alive.
Saban should be invulnerable to anything the president can do, but he is worried about Hillary. He knows support for Israel among Democrats is declining even as it has gone up among Republicans. Though he might have initially hoped that she would take a stand against the deal, its possible that he has come to the conclusion that doing so would do her more harm among the left-wing base of their party than good from independents and other supporters of Israel.
Seen in that context, Saban’s statement is not only an indication of the despair of pro-Israel Democrats but also an indication that they know they have lost control of their party. A couple of generations ago, the Democrats were lock-solid backers of Israel while Republicans who were sympathetic to it were outliers. The administration push for the Iran deal appears to be the moment when the reversal of that paradigm became official.
