By Andrew Bernard, JNS
Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) continued to spar with his party on Israel-related issues and said at an event on Wednesday that the success of anti-Israel candidates across the country might alienate Jewish voters.
“I’m not a member of the community, but if I was one, it would be bleak as a Jewish voter in the Democratic Party,” Fetterman said at a conference of the Culture for Peace Institute in Washington.
“You’re willing to support these kinds of candidates across the map?” he said. “Look at Michigan, look at the one in Maine, look at New York City, look across the map.”
The Pennsylvania senator referred to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine, Graham Platner, as examples of what has “infected” his party.
“It’s like how much anti-Israel rhetoric you can cram into your platform,” he said. “Where are your allies right now, the Jewish community?”
Fetterman has repeatedly broken with his party in his public speaking and in votes over his support for Israel and his opposition to Iran, and on issues like immigration.
After a poll in February suggested that he was more popular in Pennsylvania among Republicans than Democrats, Fetterman wrote a Washington Post opinion piece denying any suggestion that he would switch parties ahead of his next election in 2028.
“I’d be a terrible Republican, who still votes overwhelmingly with Democrats,” Fetterman said.
The senator told attendees at the Culture for Peace Institute on Wednesday that he did not see any contradiction between his left-wing views and his support for Israel.
“We’re Democrats, right? Don’t we have progressive values?” Fetterman said.
“Where is the one place in that region that lives with those same values? Where is the only place in the region where two gay people can walk around holding hands without getting thrown off a building?”
Fetterman said that despite Democrats overwhelmingly backing the notion that Iran should not possess nuclear weapons, he was now the only Democrat voting to oppose war powers resolutions aimed at limiting U.S. President Donald Trump’s military campaign against the Islamic Republic.
“If you think gas is too expensive today, let Iran become a nuclear power,” he said. “Once they’re nuclear, they are truly untouchable.”
“That’s why as a Democrat, I’m willing to embrace perhaps the most toxic thing a Democrat can do,” he added.
