Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen has every right to criticize Israel. He has every right to criticize Benjamin Netanyahu. He has every right to criticize AIPAC.
What he does not have the right to do is treat Americans who support Israel as uniquely suspect participants in American democracy. Yet that increasingly appears to be his approach.
Responding to AIPAC-related spending in Maryland’s Democratic primary to replace Rep. Steny Hoyer, Van Hollen warned that “outside groups” were trying to “buy this congressional seat” and suggested that voters should be wary because those groups “do not have the voters’ interests at heart.”
It was a familiar refrain. In recent years, Van Hollen has become one of the Senate’s most vocal critics not merely of Israeli policy, but of the pro-Israel political movement itself. Almost every disagreement over Israel eventually seems to lead him back to the same culprit: AIPAC.
But, why? What exactly makes AIPAC different from every other advocacy organization participating in American politics? Labor unions, environmental organizations, teachers unions, trial lawyers, abortion-rights groups and cryptocurrency interests all spend money to elect candidates. Whether one likes it or not, that is a normal feature of American politics. Yet Van Hollen reserves a special level of indignation for AIPAC.
The irony is that the candidate receiving the support that Van Hollen criticized — Maryland Delegate Adrian Boafo — was hardly some unknown political creation manufactured by outside interests. He was already endorsed by Steny Hoyer, Gov. Wes Moore, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks and much of Maryland’s Democratic establishment. AIPAC did not invent Boafo. It supported him.
Which suggests that Van Hollen’s real complaint may not be about money at all. It may be about the persistence of pro-Israel Democrats. After all, AIPAC’s influence reflects the fact that millions of Americans — including millions of Democrats — continue to believe that support for Israel is both morally justified and strategically important. They contribute money, organize and vote just like every other constituency.
What seems to frustrate some of Israel’s critics is that these voters stubbornly refuse to disappear. That frustration increasingly comes through in Van Hollen’s rhetoric. He speaks of AIPAC not as an advocacy organization advancing a viewpoint he opposes, but as a malign force distorting democracy itself. The implication is that support for Israel cannot simply be the sincere position of fellow Americans.
But there is another explanation. Many Americans, including many Democrats, disagree with Chris Van Hollen. They disagree about Israel. They disagree about the Middle East. They disagree about the role the United States should play in the region. And they are entitled to organize politically around those beliefs.
That is not corruption. That is democracy.
Van Hollen is free to challenge AIPAC’s positions. He is free to support candidates who share his views. He is free to argue that American policy toward Israel should change. What he should not do is suggest that pro-Israel Americans are somehow less legitimate participants in the political process than every other organized constituency.
Because the real test of democratic tolerance is not whether we respect the voices with which we agree. It is whether we respect the voices with which we do not. And on that test, Chris Van Hollen is looking increasingly intolerant and remarkably insecure.
