When Sen. Joseph Lieberman retired in 2012, it was the end of an era in American politics: Lieberman was the last Scoop Jackson Democrat, a staunch Cold War hawk and defender of liberalism at home and abroad.
When Joe Biden retires, he will not be the last pro-Israel Democrat. But he may be the last of his kind of pro-Israel Democrat—the Catholic who proclaims himself a Zionist from the Oval Office and lectures his critics on the moral imperative of letting the Jewish people control their fate.
Biden has spent decades, of course, getting into rows with Israeli leaders, and he’s been on the wrong side of many of them—including recently, as we’ve written here. He is neither more Catholic than the pope nor more Israeli than the Israelis. It’s just that there seems to be one line that Biden cannot be pressured to cross, and that is forcing Israel to stop fighting when it cannot afford to.
He will almost certainly be the last Democratic president, at least for some time, who is able to withstand the immense pressure from within his party and cross that line. In truth, I can’t think of a president of either party who has been hounded by his own party over Israel the way Biden has been. His vice president and presumed successor, Kamala Harris, clearly cannot wait to fold.
And the Israelis seem to have…
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