Dr. Alex Grobman is the senior resident scholar at the John C. Danforth Society, a member of the Council of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, and on the advisory board of The National Christian Leadership Conference of Israel. He holds an MA and PhD from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He lives in Jerusalem.
On election night, Abdul El-Sayed celebrated his victory in Michigan's Senate race by telling supporters that American money should not be spent on “apartheid or genocide or war." The incoming senator, who has accused Israel of genocide and opposed American military aid to the Jewish state, will now enter a Congress in which his party has won control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
For American Jews, the result raises a question that cannot be answered by counting seats alone: what happens when a party that has long been a political home for Jewish Americans gains power while influential voices within it increasingly portray the Jewish state as an illegitimate enterprise?
The Democratic wave was driven by the cost of living, the war with Iran, and dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump. The winners now arrive in Washington with their own convictions and the institutional power to advance them. That is what makes the result consequential for American Jews and for Israel.
A Senate Seat and a Question of Legitimacy
El-Sayed's opposition to military assistance is a policy position. His broader argument goes further. Asked earlier this year whether a Zionist could also be a progressive, he said that “every definition of a Jewish state ends up in some articulation of illiberal values." The implication is that Jewish sovereignty itself is morally indefensible.
In a subsequent interview with CBS, El-Sayed said Israel had a right to exist, adding conditions about a shared understanding. He said he supported equal rights and self-determination for Israeli Arabs and Jewish Israelis, and would accept either two states or one state if both peoples agreed. His answer did not resolve the question his earlier statement raised: does he accept the legitimacy of a state in which Jews exercise national self-determination?
Furthermore, El-Sayed's commentary exposes a profound ideological presumption. By attempting to place terms and conditions on Israeli democracy, he assumes a right to prescribe the character of a foreign democracy. Discussing or evaluating what type of country Israel ought to be is fundamentally not his issue to decide. It is not the place, nor the prerogative, of an American legislator to dictate the internal values or the foundational terms of another sovereign nation's existence.
That question matters because the Jewish attachment to Israel is not a foreign political fashion. It is rooted in Jewish history, peoplehood, their ancestral homeland and international law. When Jewish national self-determination is cast as inherently oppressive, Jews are told that an essential part of their collective identity must be defended as though it were a moral offense.
Many Michigan Jews expressed concern about El-Sayed's positions; others supported him. His election does not make those differences disappear. It places the issue inside the Senate, where a senator's words and votes carry an authority that campaign rhetoric does not.
From Protest to Congress
Michigan was not the only race to watch. In New York, Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez, both members of the Democratic Socialists of America and endorsed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, won seats in the House.
Avila Chevalier attended a pro-Arab Palestinian rally on October 8, 2023, where some participants celebrated the Hamas attack of the previous day. During her campaign, she declined to condemn that attack when asked and later defended her attendance at the rally. She will enter Congress as part of the Democratic majority.
The new majority includes supporters of Israel, and moderates substantially outnumber the party's far-left faction. Their choices will help determine how much influence that faction acquires. A movement does not need a majority of its own to shape primary contests, determine which ideas leaders feel compelled to address, and make yesterday's fringe demand tomorrow's subject of negotiation.
The Change Was Already Underway
The shift did not begin on November 3. In April, 40 senators-all members of the Democratic caucus, including two independents-voted to advance a resolution aimed at blocking a proposed sale of bulldozers to Israel. Thirty-six voted to advance a separate resolution targeting a sale of 1,000-pound bombs. Both motions failed in the Republican-controlled Senate. They concerned specific sales, not a vote to end all assistance, but the level of support revealed how far the debate had moved.
Public opinion has moved as well. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in March found that 80 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents held an unfavorable view of Israel, compared with 53 percent in 2022. Those figures measure attitudes toward Israel, not antisemitism. They show the political environment in which the new congressional majority will operate.
The new Congress will take office in January. Democratic control will give its leaders power over committees, hearings, investigations, and the legislative agenda. It will not allow them to impose every proposal automatically: legislation must pass both chambers and contend with a president who can veto it. The question is which proposals will be given the authority and momentum of a governing party.
The stakes were already visible on Election Day. Trump said the United States would stop roughly $4 billion in annual assistance to Israel at the end of 2026, while continuing to sell it weapons. He also referred to the political attacks made by El-Sayed and others. The president did not explain how the proposed cutoff would work; the existing assistance arrangement runs through 2028, and Congress plays a role in annual appropriations. His announcement should not be mistaken for an implemented policy. But it shows that pressure over Israel is already affecting the national conversation.
What It Means for American Jews
The danger for American Jews comes when language that treats Zionism as a morally bankrupt racist country that commits genocide becomes a standard in institutions, political organizations, classrooms, and public life-and leaders remain silent as that language is turned against Jewish Americans.
Political scientist Ehud Sprinzak asserted this deliberate delegitimization leads to erosion of Israel’s stature and ultimately its right to exist. This occurs when remarks by the country’s spokesman are “perceived as irrelevant," and when the leadership is no longer regarded as worthy of engaging in legitimate discourse with other countries.
The consequences become clear when American Jews are pressured to renounce their connection to Israel as the price of belonging, or when a Jewish institution is treated as a legitimate target because of its relationship with the Jewish state.
In October, flyers at the University of Oregon targeted the director of Hillel and called for Hillel to leave campus. University and community leaders condemned the incident. Their response was necessary because the message was unmistakable: an institution serving Jewish students was being told it did not belong.
The Anti-Defamation League recorded 6,274 antisemitic incidents in 2025, its third-highest annual total since it began tracking them in 1979, and a record 203 physical assaults. The total includes criminal and noncriminal incidents. This is the reality the new Congress inherits.
The Responsibility of the Democratic Leadership
The historian Robert S. Wistrich described antisemitism as a “primary symptom of social pathology." His warning was that the treatment of Jews tells us something about the health of the society in which it occurs. The question for the incoming Democratic leadership is whether it will recognize that warning when the pressure comes from within its own coalition.
Will its leaders defend Jewish students and institutions when they are targeted as “Zionist"? Will they reject the demand that Jews disavow the Jewish state to participate in public life? Will they insist that debate about Israel does not give anyone a license to intimidate American Jews or deny them the right to define their own identity?
These are not questions that can be answered by a statement after the next attack. They require the party to set standards for the language it accepts, the allies it embraces, and the conduct it is prepared to confront.
Millions of Americans including Jews voted Democratic because they wanted a change in Washington. The party's victory gives its leaders power. How they use it-and what they are willing to tolerate in its exercise-will reveal the meaning of that victory for Jews and for America.
The critical question this election raises is whether American Jews still have a secure future in the U.S., or if domestic politics will begin to mirror the exceptional, double standards that have long been demanded of the Jewish state globally.
“The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews," observed Eric Hoffer, a former longshoreman and non-Jewish American social philosopher. “Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious, it must sue for peace. Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world…. Other nations when they are defeated survive and recover. But should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed."