Days after the 2016 elec­tion, Bernie Sanders fired off an e‑mail to his sup­port­ers urg­ing them to sup­port Min­neso­ta Demo­c­rat Kei­th Elli­son for Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee (DNC) chair.

"An Ellison win in the race for DNC chair would reflect the Democratic base’s positions on Israel—and perhaps spell an end to the days when voicing concerns over Israeli conduct could doom political careers."

Elli­son, an ear­ly Sanders sup­port­er and the first Mus­lim elect­ed to Con­gress, quick­ly gar­nered the sup­port of par­ty lead­ers like Chuck Schumer — an indi­ca­tion that Democ­rats close to Wall Street, like Schumer, rec­og­nized the par­ty need­ed fresh thinking.

But then pro-Israel fig­ures and groups, like major Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty donor Haim Saban, the Simon Wiesen­thal Cen­ter and Anti-Defama­tion League, stepped in. They raised ques­tions about Ellison’s past ties to the Nation of Islam. They dis­ap­proved of his will­ing­ness to crit­i­cize Israel. And in doing so, they gave cre­dence to a right-wing cam­paign designed to paint Elli­son as an anti-Semi­te, despite the Congressman’s close ties to the Min­neso­ta Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty and sup­port from Jew­ish groups like J Street and Jew­ish Voice for Peace. Sud­den­ly, what looked like an easy choice for Democ­rats had devolved into a proxy fight over the party’s posi­tion on Israel.

DNC heads have lit­tle to do with for­mu­lat­ing the party’s posi­tions on for­eign pol­i­cy issues. But Ellison’s rise touched a nerve among pro-Israel Democ­rats wor­ried that iron­clad bipar­ti­san sup­port for Israel is slip­ping amongst the par­ty faith­ful. To them, an Elli­son vic­to­ry would mean that the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty was clos­er to turn­ing its back on unabashed sup­port for Israel.

“There are chang­ing opin­ions amongst Amer­i­cans and amongst Democ­rats about Israel/​Palestine,” said Rab­bi Joseph Berman, gov­ern­ment affairs man­ag­er for Jew­ish Voice for Peace.

Berman point­ed to a recent Brook­ings Insti­tu­tion poll show­ing that 60 per­cent of Democ­rats sup­port eco­nom­ic sanc­tions against Israel over its build­ing of set­tle­ments on Pales­tin­ian land — a num­ber that has increased 11 points since last year, when the same ques­tion was asked.

“There’s a divide between [those num­bers] and where mem­bers of Con­gress are at,” he added, and pre­dict­ed the num­ber of Democ­rats who sup­port such action would increase in com­ing years.

A lone­ly voice on Palestine

Ellison’s past ties to the Nation of Islam were con­test­ed when he first ran for Con­gress, in 2006. He helped orga­nize a del­e­ga­tion to the 1995 Mil­lion Man March, a gath­er­ing in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. led by Nation of Islam leader Louis Far­rakhan, who has repeat­ed­ly made anti-Semit­ic remarks. Elli­son has since apol­o­gized for his defense of the Nation of Islam, writ­ing to a Jew­ish group dur­ing his run for Con­gress that the Black Mus­lim group was ​“anti-Semit­ic, and I should have come to that con­clu­sion ear­li­er than I did.”

Ellison’s flir­ta­tion with Black nation­al­ist pol­i­tics did not fol­low him to Con­gress. He is hard­ly a rad­i­cal on Israel. He has repeat­ed­ly vot­ed in favor of U.S. mil­i­tary aid to Israel, and sup­ports a two-state solu­tion to the con­flict. But Elli­son has crit­i­cized Israel’s block­ade of Gaza for the eco­nom­ic dev­as­ta­tion it has wrought on the coastal ter­ri­to­ry, and signed a let­ter to Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma rais­ing con­cerns over how Pales­tin­ian chil­dren ​“live under the con­stant fear of arrest, deten­tion, and vio­lence at the hands of the Israeli military.”

He has also come under crit­i­cism for his 2014 vote, dur­ing the war in Gaza, against addi­tion­al fund­ing for Iron Dome, the Israeli anti-rock­et sys­tem. At the time, he explained his vote by say­ing that a cease-fire is the best route to pro­tect­ing civil­ians on both sides — and that a vote for Iron Dome only expressed con­cern for Israeli civilians.

Laila Abde­laz­iz, a Pales­tin­ian-Amer­i­can and the Tam­pa Bay region­al direc­tor for the Flori­da Young Democ­rats, has got­ten to know Elli­son in recent years, and says the Con­gress­man has taught her a lot about pol­i­tics and com­mu­ni­ty organizing.

In an inter­view with In These Times, she praised Elli­son for pro­vid­ing ​“an office in the halls of pow­er, in Con­gress, in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., for Pales­tin­ian rights activists, and for Pales­tin­ian rights cam­paigns to have access to peo­ple that they oth­er­wise wouldn’t have access to.” She point­ed to how Elli­son host­ed Tariq Abu Khdeir, the Pales­tin­ian-Amer­i­can teenag­er beat by the Israeli police in 2014, on Capi­tol Hill, and how a pho­to­graph he post­ed on Twit­ter showed a sign in the occu­pied West Bank city of Hebron read­ing: ​“Cau­tion: This was tak­en by Israel. You are enter­ing apartheid.” (The pho­to was a ref­er­ence to a street in Hebron that Pales­tini­ans are barred from walk­ing on.)

“I can’t point to any oth­er mem­ber of Con­gress that would be will­ing to do that,” she said.

It’s this will­ing­ness to devi­ate from Con­gres­sion­al norms on Israel, a state that receives over­whelm­ing sup­port from across the polit­i­cal spec­trum, that has pro-Israel groups wor­ried. Abde­laz­iz said that Ellison’s views on Israel — which she said reflects the views of many Democ­rats — are ​“seen as a threat to the very large cohort of Zion­ist donors” that fund the party.

The Israel lob­by steps in

The con­tro­ver­sy over Elli­son reached its height when, on Novem­ber 29, the Inves­tiga­tive Project on Ter­ror­ism, a group run by the anti-Mus­lim activist and writer Steven Emer­son, released audio of Elli­son at a 2010 fundraiser.

“The Unit­ed States for­eign pol­i­cy in the Mid­dle East is gov­erned by what is good or bad through a coun­try of 7 mil­lion peo­ple. A region of 350 mil­lion all turns on a coun­try of 7 mil­lion. Does that make sense? Is that log­ic?” Elli­son said, before urg­ing Mus­lim-Amer­i­cans to get involved in the pol­i­cy process. (The ref­er­ence to a coun­try of 7 mil­lion is a ref­er­ence to Israel, which has an actu­al pop­u­la­tion of more than 8 million.)

The Anti-Defama­tion League, which had pre­vi­ous­ly expressed qual­i­fied sup­port for Elli­son, released a state­ment in response to the record­ing, say­ing that Ellison’s com­ments were ​“deeply dis­turb­ing and dis­qual­i­fy­ing,” and that they raise ​“age-old stereo­types about Jew­ish con­trol of our gov­ern­ment.” The next day, Saban told a forum on U.S.-Israel rela­tions that Elli­son was ​“clear­ly an anti-Semi­te and anti-Israel.” He added: ​“Kei­th Elli­son would be a dis­as­ter for the rela­tion­ship between the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty and the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party.”

His words car­ry weight. Saban is one of the biggest donors to the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, giv­ing mil­lions of dol­lars to pro-Demo­c­ra­t­ic Super PACs. He has also giv­en hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars to the DNC itself.

The firestorm over Elli­son recalls past con­tro­ver­sies over Israel. In March 2009, Chas Free­man with­drew his name from being con­sid­ered for the Nation­al Intel­li­gence Coun­cil. The with­draw­al came after pro-Israel groups and politi­cians harsh­ly crit­i­cized Free­man for his com­ments on Israel, like his state­ment, in a 2006 speech, that ​“with each decade, Israel’s behav­ior has devi­at­ed far­ther from the humane ideals of its founders.”

But this time, despite Saban’s inter­ven­tion, there is lit­tle indi­ca­tion that Elli­son will be forced out of the DNC race. Sen. Schumer, a stal­wart sup­port­er of Israel and the incom­ing minor­i­ty leader in the Sen­ate, has main­tained his sup­port for Elli­son, and the Min­neso­ta Demo­c­rat announced he would step down from Con­gress to run the DNC, remov­ing anoth­er area of con­cern for the par­ty. An Elli­son win in the race for DNC chair would reflect the Demo­c­ra­t­ic base’s posi­tions on Israel — and per­haps spell an end to the days when voic­ing con­cerns over Israeli con­duct could doom polit­i­cal careers.