For much of my life, support for Israel was not a partisan issue. Democrats and Republicans disagreed on plenty of things, but the idea that America should stand with its closest ally in the Middle East was largely taken for granted. Today, that consensus is fraying, and some Democrats seem determined to accelerate its collapse.

This past week, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) openly discussed the possibility of a 2028 presidential campaign and suggested that criticism of Israel should effectively become a litmus test for Democratic candidates. If that is where the party is heading, Democrats should understand the risks.

What Van Hollen is proposing is not merely a different approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He is suggesting that support for Israel should become a political liability within the Democratic Party. That represents a dramatic break from decades of Democratic foreign policy and a direct challenge to millions of Jewish voters who do not view Israel as just another foreign policy issue, but as an integral part of Jewish history, identity, and peoplehood.

The question is not whether Democratic candidates should be willing to criticize Israeli governments. Israelis criticize their own governments every day. The question is whether support for Israel itself is becoming disqualifying. If that is the direction of the party, Democrats should stop pretending they are engaged in a debate over policy. They are engaged in a debate over who belongs in the coalition.

For generations, Jewish Americans found a political home in the Democratic Party. We supported labor rights, civil rights, church-state separation, immigration reform, reproductive freedom, and a vision of pluralistic democracy that aligned with both our values and our experiences as a minority community.

That relationship was never based on blind loyalty. It was based on a belief that the Democratic Party understood the importance of protecting vulnerable communities and confronting bigotry wherever it emerged.

What many Jewish voters are struggling with today is the perception that antisemitism and antizionism are increasingly being treated as an exception to that principle.

When antisemitism comes from the right, Democrats rightly and forcefully condemn it. When it emerges from segments of the left, the response is often hesitation, qualification, or outright denial. Jewish concerns are scrutinized in ways that concerns raised by other minority communities rarely are.

The result is a growing sense that Jews are being asked to tolerate rhetoric and behavior that would be unacceptable if directed at almost anyone else.

Jewish voters have spent years being told that chants calling for Israel’s destruction have nothing to do with antisemitism. They have been told that attacks on Zionists are somehow different from attacks on Jews, despite the overwhelming majority of Jewish Americans identifying as Zionists in some form. They have been told that concerns about antisemitism are distractions, exaggerations, or attempts to silence criticism. At some point, people stop listening to those explanations and start concluding that their concerns simply do not matter.

That is why the normalization of rhetoric surrounding organizations like AIPAC should concern everyone.

Listen carefully whenever AIPAC enters the conversation. Too often, what follows is not a discussion about campaign finance but a familiar story about hidden influence, undue power, and political manipulation. The organization becomes a proxy through which people can express suspicions they would never openly direct at Jews themselves.

That does not mean every criticism of AIPAC is antisemitic. Of course it isn’t. But when AIPAC is repeatedly portrayed as the singular explanation for political outcomes despite not being remotely unique in American politics, Jewish Americans are justified in asking why this particular organization receives such obsessive attention.

History teaches us to recognize these patterns. We ignore them at our own peril.

Equally troubling is Van Hollen’s defense of Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner.

There should not be a debate about Graham Platner. A candidate who spent years carrying a Nazi tattoo should not be defended by a United States senator contemplating a presidential campaign. Full stop.

If a Republican candidate had spent years displaying Nazi imagery on their body, Democrats would rightly demand immediate condemnation. They would not accept explanations. They would not change the subject. They would not insist voters focus on economic policy instead. The standard should not change because the candidate happens to occupy the left wing of the political spectrum.

Platner’s record is not a matter of minor disagreements or youthful mistakes. We are talking about an individual who carried a Nazi tattoo for much of his adult life, who has faced allegations involving sexual assault, who has a documented history of offensive rhetoric, and who has promoted the notion that Israel effectively buys American politicians. A candidate’s economic message does not erase those facts.

When elected officials rush to defend someone with that history, they send a message about what behavior is considered disqualifying and what behavior is not. Voters notice.

At the same time, the Democratic Socialists of America continue their efforts to expand their influence within Democratic politics. In race after race, DSA-backed candidates are seeking offices ranging from city hall to Congress. I cannot say for certain that not every candidate associated with the movement has engaged in antisemitic rhetoric, but there have been far too many examples of candidates and activists making statements that would be immediately condemned if directed at almost any other minority group.

The most frustrating part is not the rhetoric coming from activists. Every political movement has activists who push boundaries and test limits. The real problem is the growing reluctance of Democratic leaders to draw clear moral lines.

Too often, party leaders speak loudly about antisemitism when it comes from the right and whisper when it comes from the left. Too often, they demand accountability from their opponents while offering excuses to their allies. Jewish voters notice the difference.

Jewish voters are increasingly being told that our concerns are exaggerated, that incidents are isolated, or that we should simply accept alliances with people who have a history of hostility toward Israel and, in some cases, toward Jews themselves.

Consider New York City, where prominent political figures have endorsed candidates who participated in anti-Israel demonstrations immediately following the attack on October 7. For many Jews, that timing matters. It raises uncomfortable questions about priorities, empathy, and moral judgment. Yet those concerns are often dismissed rather than addressed.

Alana Zeitchik recently observed that the anti-Israel movement on the American left is becoming the equivalent of the anti-abortion movement that energized Republicans for decades. There is a great deal of truth in that comparison. For a growing segment of activists, Israel is no longer one issue among many. It is becoming a defining ideological test that determines who belongs in the coalition and who does not.

That may energize some voters. It may even help candidates win certain primaries.

But Democrats should be careful about the message they are sending.

The Democratic Party still has a choice to make.

It can remain a broad coalition that welcomes supporters of Israel and critics of Israel alike while drawing firm lines against antisemitism and antizionism from any direction.

Or it can continue down a path in which hostility toward Israel becomes a badge of ideological purity, concerns about antisemitism and antizionism are dismissed as political inconveniences, and candidates are judged by whether they satisfy activist demands rather than whether they meet basic standards of character and judgment.

If that second path becomes the future of the Democratic Party, many Jewish voters will face a question we never expected to ask:

Does the party we spent generations supporting still have a place for us?

Political parties do not own votes. They earn them.

If Democratic leaders continue treating support for Israel as a problem to be managed and concerns about antisemitism and antizionism as an inconvenience to be explained away, they may discover that a constituency they long considered dependable is no longer willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

The answer will matter far beyond 2028.