On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” New York Times National Correspondent Jeremy Peters argued that “the activist left has done such a good job of making this a third rail, like you have to buy into the rhetoric” that Israel is guilty of genocide, “just like you used to have to say I want to defund the police” and that’s why Jewish Democrats who are prospective 2028 presidential candidates “twist themselves into knots over” the issue of Israel.
After host Bill Maher said that Democrats go along with accusing Israel of genocide, and CNN host and Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash said that there are many prospective Democratic presidential candidates who are Jewish, Peters said, “Well, we’ll see what happens when they get asked about Israel.”
Peters continued, “I think Bill has a good point, is that they twist themselves into knots over it, because the activist left has done such a good job of making this a third rail, like you have to buy into the rhetoric, just like you used to have to say I want to defund the police or I want there to be –.”
Maher cut in to say, “It’s a litmus test.”
Peters responded, “Yes, exactly. And, as is often the case, and this is something I think Democratic strategists worry about privately, is the absolutist nature of some of the activism rhetoric on the left is a real problem, because they’re always trying to explain it away, right? Well, we don’t really mean to defund the police. Well, we don’t really mean that Donald Trump is a king, or they’re using kind of jargony language like let’s stop the oligarchy or whatever that tour is.”
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