Democrats' Israel divide widens in House Foreign Affairs

Washington, DC - On August 25, 2026, US Representative Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) was selected by the Democratic Party to become the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s (HFAC) Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa.

The appointment comes at a moment when many Democratic voters are increasingly critical of US policies toward Israel, Gaza, Iran, and the broader region.

If Democrats regain control of the House after the November 2026 midterm elections, the party would be putting one of its staunchest pro-Israel members in line to chair the powerful subcommittee despite opposition from their own base.

Moskowitz comes to the post with several years of experience on HFAC. During the 119th Congress, he has served as the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Intelligence, where he has played a prominent role in congressional scrutiny of the Department of State and the larger US foreign policy apparatus.

Moskowitz has been prominent in his ardent support for Israel. He has notably championed legislation to strengthen US–Israeli defence cooperation and has been among the party’s most vocal advocates for the Abraham Accords, introducing bipartisan legislation in 2025 that would expedite certain arms sales to countries that have normalised relations with Israel and that cooperate with the United States against Iran and Iranian-backed groups.

In the same spirit, Moskowitz has also collaborated with Republicans to stymie international pressure on Israel. He was one of just 16 House Democrats to join Republicans in voting for legislation seeking to force former President Joe Biden to release a shipment of bombs to Israel and has worked closely with Republican Congressman Mike Lawler (R-NY) to halt US funding to UN agencies that expel or restrict Israel.

Moskowitz’s appointment also hands the Democratic Party’s Middle East portfolio to one of its more hawkish voices on Iran. Moskowitz has positioned himself to the right of Vice President JD Vance and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff on Iran policy, saying that his views align more closely with Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), two of the Senate’s most prominent Iran hawks.

Both senators have defended using military force against Iran, and Graham credited himself with persuading President Trump to go to war.

Moskowitz also initially opposed the Iran War Powers Resolution introduced by Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) to restrain Trump from escalating against Iran, calling the measure the “Ayatollah Protection Act” and putting himself at odds with most of his own party and its leadership.

He ultimately voted for the resolution once the US strikes had begun but framed his support as a defence of Congress’s war powers rather than opposition to the war.

On the domestic front, Moskowitz has built a political record around delegitimising pro-Palestine activism. In April 2025, he reintroduced legislation that would prevent the federal government from contracting with entities that participate in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, declaring that BDS “has no place in federal contracts” and characterising the entire movement as antisemitic.

Moskowitz has likewise been critical of the university campus movements for Palestine. At the height of the 2024 university protests, he became a vocal critic of such student activism in Congress.

His subsequent legislative agenda has reinforced that position. In February 2025, the Florida representative backed the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which would require the Department of Education to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition when evaluating discrimination complaints, including examples concerning certain forms of criticism of Israel.

The IHRA definition conflates criticism of Israel and Zionism with antisemitism, which in practice chills free speech and punishes those who speak out against Israel and its violations of Palestinian rights, while undermining efforts to combat antisemitism itself.

In Florida’s August 18, 2026, Democratic primary, Moskowitz handily defeated his challenger, Oliver Larkin, a Democratic Socialist who had made opposition to US support for Israel a focal point of his campaign. Moskowitz won roughly 64 percent of the vote in the newly drawn 25th Congressional District, while Larkin received 36 percent.

Moskowitz’s victory, however, took place despite a broader change in Democratic voters’ attitudes toward Israel. In a May 2026 New York Times/Siena poll, 74 percent of potential Democratic supporters expressed opposition to sending additional US economic and military aid to Israel, up from 45 percent in December 2023.

The 2026 poll showed that 95 percent of potential Democratic voters opposed the US–Israeli war on Iran and nearly half said that their party was too supportive of Israel. In April 2026, Pew Research Center found that 80 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents held an unfavourable view of Israel, compared with 53 percent in 2022.

An August 2026 poll by the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy (IMEU) Project revealed that most Democratic voters in the first six states to hold presidential primaries in 2028 - and in some cases, significant majorities - prefer a presidential candidate who supports sanctioning and cutting off US weapons transfers to Israel.

The shift on Israel is becoming increasingly visible among Democratic lawmakers as well. On July 15, 2026, 103 House Democrats voted for Rep. Thomas Massie’s (R-KY) amendment to eliminate $3.3 billion in annual US security assistance to Tel Aviv. By comparison, an April 2024 bill to provide additional military aid to Israel was opposed by just 37 Democratic lawmakers.

The same trend was reflected in the primary season, when several candidates running on more critical positions toward Israel prevailed in closely watched Democratic races. In Michigan, Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed won even after the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its allies spent more than $54 million against him. Wins like these would have been unlikely a few election cycles ago.

Still, the success of candidates openly critical of Israel has not pulled the Democratic establishment away from its longstanding support, even as some party leaders have modified their rhetoric toward the Israeli government ahead of the midterms. More importantly, many establishment politicians continue to take substantial campaign funding from AIPAC.

According to Track AIPAC, Moskowitz has received $833,288 in campaign contributions from pro-Israel groups over the course of his career and continues to maintain close ties to controversial lobbying groups.

Ultimately, these developments expose a widening gap on Israel between the Democratic establishment and its base. By elevating lawmakers like Moskowitz to influential foreign policy positions, party leaders are once again demonstrating how out of touch they are with popular sentiment.

As ranking member, Moskowitz could use his position to preserve and strengthen pro-Israel tendencies in the party, even as more Democratic voters and lawmakers move in the opposite direction.

**This article was originally published by Arab Center Washington DC. ©️ 2026 Arab Center Washington DC. Republished with permission by The New Arab as part of the From Washington series. **

From Washington is a collaboration between The New Arab and Arab Center Washington DC exploring the ideas, interests, and power dynamics shaping US policy towards the Arab world