Tobin's 'Democrat Derangement Syndrome' is bad for the Jews

While Jonathan Tobin is correct [It's Mamdani's New York now, not Eliot Engel's] in assessing that an anti-Israel drift has accompanied the Democratic Party’s ongoing leftward shift, he can barely bring himself to grudgingly acknowledge that there are still pro-Israel Democrats — and that Rep. Ritchie Torres, the current member of Congress from Eliot Engel’s very own Bronx district, both supports a menu of progressive causes and has been one of Congress’ loudest and most consistently unapologetic advocates for the Jewish state and the fight against antisemitism in the US.

The blind spot afflicting Tobin — who is the highly prolific editor-in-chief of Jewish News Syndicate, one of America’s two major Jewish news services, and who for years has been featured prominently in our pages — is likely because he has DDS (Democrat Derangement Syndrome). This is something he demonstrates frequently even as he calls out those with TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome). Both DDS and TDS are dangers to the body politic and especially to Jews.

Should Rep. Torres lose his June Democratic primary against an anti-Israel progressive, it would be fair to assign part of the blame to Republican-firsters like Tobin who, in urging that Jews abandon the Democratic Party, put Republican Party interests ahead of Jewish and Israeli concerns.

Of course, far too many Democrats have abandoned Israel and the Jews while most Republicans — including President Trump — have more generally championed our causes.

But it is simply wrong to argue that New York City voters, in particular, should abandon their Democratic affiliation. Doing so means they cannot vote in Democratic primaries which typically determine an election’s ultimate winner.

Those in Rep. Torres’ district who’ve followed Tobin down the Republican rabbit hole in a Democratic city ought to be plagued by guilty consciences if Torres falls on primary day and his district — which for many years was represented by the unabashed Israel advocate Eliot Engel — elects someone who hates Israel and, at best, will only tolerate American Jews.