Chris Van Hollen’s Incoherent Attempt to Reconcile Two Irreconcilable Positions

On Tuesday, the New York Times published an opinion piece by Maryland’s Chris Van Hollen—one of the Senate’s most prominent opponents of the Jewish state—declaring that his fellow Democrats must “face” the “hard truth” that they have been too supportive of Israel. The column contains many falsehoods: accusations of genocide and apartheid, the assertion that “children in Gaza were starving,” and, most baffling, that Democrats have “provided reflexive and unconditional support to Israeli governments.” (In truth, American support, and especially military aid, has been conditional since it first began during the Nixon administration.)