Residents in Maryland’s 8th Congressional District and beyond were stunned on April 20 when reports surfaced that Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) — long viewed as a pro-Israel progressive — joined 36 House Democrats and 21 Republicans in voting against legislation to provide $14 billion in military aid to Israel and more than $9 billion in humanitarian aid for Gaza.
Anti-Israel forces celebrated the Raskin vote, as it represented an embrace by a well-known, highly respected, Jewish voice in Congress. For the anti-Israel crowd, Raskin’s vote inspired the hope that other, more ambivalent but historic supporters of Israel, would now feel comfortable joining the opposition camp and following Raskin’s lead.
Pro-Israel advocates — who counted Raskin among a unique subset of the Democrats’ progressive wing who recognize and appreciate the importance of the U.S.-Israel alliance, and who understand and even embrace the historic Zionist aspiration for a safe and secure Jewish state in the Jewish homeland — were at a loss to explain what was viewed as Raskin’s betrayal.
That segment of the community was still smarting from the sting of Raskin joining 55 other Democrats in an April 10 letter calling on President Joe Biden to halt arms shipments to Israel pending an independent investigation into the IDF airstrike that killed seven aid workers in Gaza. But many of the signatories on that letter, including a few understood to be more Squad-sympathetic than Raskin, voted in favor of the Israel aid bill. Raskin did not.
This begs at least two questions: What was Raskin trying to accomplish with his vote — which he knew would engender a strong reaction? And did his disturbing vote make any difference?
In casting his vote — which he described in a press release on April 21 as his message to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about how he should conduct Israel’s Gaza war — Raskin linked arms with a rag-tag combination of hard-right Republican extremists and a band of defiant Democrats led by the implacable anti-Israel Squad and friends, in a futile but loud rejection of the United States’ closest and most valued ally in the Middle East.
Raskin was one of only two Jewish members in the House to vote against the bill. He says he followed his moral conscience. But we wonder where his lofty, principled high ground fits with the knowledge that the vote he is so proud of provides comfort and support to the marauding terrorists of Hamas and Islamic jihad whom he understands and acknowledges must be defeated.
The aid package passed by a 366-58 margin, reflecting an overwhelming level of bipartisan support for continuing aid to Israel. Raskin knew that his vote would make no difference. And he opposed Israel aid knowing that the vast majority of his constituents — including the largest Jewish community in any district in the state of Maryland — supported the aid bill, even among those who have concerns about Israel’s war effort in Gaza.
We can respect votes of conscience even if we disagree with them. But we can neither respect nor tolerate a selective “one-sided morality” that makes unprecedented demands on how Israel’s military should defend its citizens while giving its barbaric, terror-driven enemy a free pass for its atrocities and victimization of the
