https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/11/senator-warrens-proposal-divide-jerusalem-not-only-frontpagemagcom/
As Democratic candidates for the presidency continue to move further to the left in an effort to distance themselves from the policies and politics of President Trump, the two frontrunners, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, have increased the rhetoric against what is normally an untouchable topic for Democrats and Republicans alike: the United States’ relationship with the sole democracy in the Middle East, Israel. While no candidate could expect to survive the political cost of walking away from Israel completely— diplomatically and financially—Sanders and Warren have recently been spouting positions with regard to Israel that show they apparently feel they can make that support conditional and can change the way the U.S. has traditionally been a trustworthy diplomatic partner with shared strategic goals.
At the J Street conference this week in Washington, D.C., for example, Sanders suggested to the attendees of the liberal Jewish Middle East policy group that, while the $3.8 billion in aid the U.S. commits to Israel each year should remain intact, he wondered out loud if this aid could be conditional. “My solution is to say to Israel: you get $3.8 billion dollars every year, if you want military aid you’re going to have to fundamentally change your relationship to the people of Gaza,” Sanders said. “In fact,” he added with breathtaking audacity, “I think it is fair to say that some of that should go right now into humanitarian aid in Gaza.” Perhaps Sanders has forgotten that the humanitarian crisis he alludes to in Hamas-controlled Gaza is largely the result of the terrorist group’s diverting of funds meant for schools, hospitals, food, and infrastructure in Gaza and using them instead for the construction of terror tunnels, rifles, bombs, and some of the 15,000 or so of rockets and mortars that have been launched from Gaza since the 2005 disengagement and have rained down of southern Israeli towns with the sole purpose of murdering Jews.
Not to be outdone in dangerous rhetoric about Israel’s future relationship with the United States, Senator Warren delivered a videotaped speech to the J Street conferees, announcing that if she becomes president she will push for the oft-discussed two-state solution, “the best outcome for U.S. interests,” as she put it. It will be “the best outcome for Israel’s security and future, and the best outcome for ensuring the Palestinian’s right to freedom and self-determination,” at the same time “ensuring an end to Israeli occupation.” There is nothing new about that proposal; what was new, and shocking, about Warren’s speech was her strident addition to the two-state plan, namely, that Jerusalem—the spiritual and ancestral home of Judaism for some 3000 years—would be carved up into two capitals, one Israeli and one Palestinian. “I will make clear,” she announced in her professorial tone, “that in a two-state agreement, both parties should be able to have their capitals in Jerusalem.”