The self-described “pro-Israel” organization endorsed more than 200 congressional candidates in the 2026 midterms, raised over $13 million and projects a 98% victory rate. Its president, Jeremy Ben-Ami, declared that J Street had become the center of Democratic politics on Israel.
The election results tell a larger story about how far that center has moved, and the role a progressive Jewish organization has played in legitimizing increasingly hostile positions toward Israel within the Democratic Party.
When Genocide Crossed the Line
In January 2024, J Street withdrew its endorsement of Congressman Jamaal Bowman following growing disagreements over his rhetoric, including accusations that Israel was committing genocide and his praise of controversial anti-Israel commentator Norman Finkelstein. Ben-Ami declared “When the rhetoric, the framing and the approach go too far, that’s where we are going to hold our line.”
No longer.
In November 2025, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib introduced a resolution titled Recognizing the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza, calling on the United States to officially recognize that Israel had committed “genocide.” Ten original cosponsors appeared among J Street’s successful 2026 endorsees:
Becca Balint — Vermont
André Carson — Indiana
Greg Casar — Texas
Hank Johnson — Georgia
Pramila Jayapal — Washington
Ro Khanna — California
Jim McGovern — Massachusetts
Mark Pocan — Wisconsin
Delia Ramirez — Illinois
Lateefah Simon — California
In less than three years, language that helped cost one politician J Street’s support had become acceptable among its endorsed candidates.
Beyond Genocide
The change extends beyond one accusation.
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal called Israel a “racist state” in 2023. Congressman Ro Khanna and Congresswoman Delia Ramirez were among the politicians who formally sponsored the genocide resolution, while Khanna has also criticized Israeli rule in the West Bank as “apartheid.”
Their congressional votes reveal additional differences over America’s relationship with Israel.
On April 20, 2024, thirty-seven House Democrats voted to provide military assistance to Ukraine while opposing a separate assistance package for Israel. J Street-endorsed politicians André Carson, Greg Casar, Pramila Jayapal, Ro Khanna, Mark Pocan and Delia Ramirez were among them.
On October 25, 2023, the House passed a resolution condemning Hamas’s October 7 massacre and affirming American support for Israel by a vote of 412–10. Carson and Ramirez voted against it, while Jayapal and Casar merely voted present. Curiously, J Street supported that resolution and subsequently endorsed politicians who declined to vote for it.
The widening range of accepted positions also includes economic boycotts. J Street officially opposes the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement but supports targeted import bans and sanctions involving Jews and Jewish businesses from Judea and Samaria. In September 2026, it welcomed such restrictions and urged similar American measures.
This has been a trend for years. Several endorsed politicians, including Carson, Jayapal and Pocan, voted against a 2019 congressional resolution opposing BDS.
J Street’s endorsements now accommodate accusations of genocide and apartheid, opposition to military assistance and a wider range of positions supporting economic pressure on Israel.
Moving the Political Center
J Street’s endorsements offer something an explicitly anti-Israel organization cannot: political cover from an organization identifying itself as progressive, Jewish and pro-Israel. That validation gives Democratic politicians room to advance positions once considered outside of liberal pro-Israel boundaries.
This unquestionably harms the State of Israel. It has also increasingly created a cleft inside the American Jewish community.
J Street may claim to be “the [new] center of the Democratic Party’s approach to Israel and Palestine,” but it has become a fringe extremist group among pro-Israel Americans.
Part 2 of Democracy Is Beautiful. Politics Is Ugly.What holds a divided society together when citizens lose faith in their future, their institutions and one another?
The United States has operated under the same Constitution since 1789. It has endured wars, depressions, assassinations, political scandals and profound disagreements over the meaning of freedom and equality. It also suffered a catastrophic Civil War that demonstrated how completely a nation can fracture.
What allows people with fundamentally different beliefs and interests to remain committed to the same country?
A constitution establishes the rules of government. It cannot guarantee that citizens trust those rules, believe they have a future within the system or feel any obligation toward people with whom they disagree.
For more than two thousand years, political philosophers have examined the conditions that sustain a republic. Their insights reveal five foundations that extend beyond constitutional design.
A Stake in the Future
Aristotle (384–322 BCE) warned in Politics that deep divisions between rich and poor could destabilize government. He believed a substantial middle class moderated competing economic interests and helped preserve political stability.
America has long been sustained by the expectation that hard work could produce a better life. Homeownership, entrepreneurship, education and the opportunity to provide more for one’s children gave people a personal stake in the country’s success.
But that confidence weakens when housing becomes unaffordable, healthcare and education consume family incomes, and younger generations question whether they can achieve the standard of living their parents enjoyed.
The problem extends beyond inequality. People can tolerate considerable differences in wealth when they believe advancement remains possible. Resentment grows when opportunity appears closed and economic rewards seem disconnected from effort.
A republic becomes vulnerable when citizens stop believing they have a future worth investing in.
Confidence in Fair Institutions
John Locke (1632–1704) argued that legitimate government exists to protect fundamental rights through established laws and impartial administration of justice.
Citizens can accept decisions they dislike when they believe the rules are fair. But when courts, elections, law enforcement and government agencies are viewed as instruments of political or economic favoritism, dissatisfaction becomes a challenge to the system itself.
Trust in Washington has fallen dramatically. Pew Research Center’s historical series shows that 73% of Americans trusted the federal government to do what is right most or all of the time in 1958, compared with just 17% in September 2025.
The more troubling development is the tendency to judge institutions by whether they produce politically desirable outcomes.
A court is considered legitimate when it rules favorably and corrupt when it does not. Elections are celebrated when preferred candidates win and questioned when they lose.
The danger arises when citizens lose confidence that the rules apply equally to everyone.
The Bonds That Make a Nation
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859), writing in Democracy in America, admired Americans’ extraordinary willingness to form churches, charities, schools, local organizations and voluntary associations.
These institutions taught cooperation. Neighbors could disagree about national politics while working together to improve their communities.
Tocqueville feared that isolated individuals would increasingly depend upon centralized government as local associations weakened.
Today, political identity increasingly reaches into friendships, families, schools, religious institutions and businesses. Social media encourages people to surround themselves with those who share their opinions while regarding political opponents with suspicion.
The danger is that citizens begin to lose relationships that transcend politics.
A nation needs more than a common government. It needs communities in which people learn to live and work together despite their differences.
A Shared Understanding of Reality
Hannah Arendt (1906–1975), in her 1967 essay Truth and Politics, examined the importance of factual truth to public life.
People can disagree about policies, values and the interpretation of events. But meaningful debate requires some common understanding of what actually happened.
Today’s information environment offers unprecedented access to knowledge while allowing competing political communities to inhabit entirely different accounts of reality.
Traditional media, partisan commentators, social platforms and artificial intelligence can reinforce existing beliefs and spread misleading claims.
When citizens cannot agree on basic facts or recognize credible evidence, persuasion becomes difficult. Every disagreement can become another accusation of deception.
“In a world where facts are extraneous, we are only left with a clash of emotions.” – First One Through, “Eyes Wide Shut” November 2016
A republic requires more than freedom to express competing opinions. It needs a public capable of distinguishing facts from arguments about those facts.
The Character Required for Self-Government
John Adams (1735–1826) understood that republican institutions depended upon civic virtue as well as laws.
In Thoughts on Government (1776), he emphasized representative institutions, impartial justice and the responsibilities of citizenship.
No constitution can anticipate every circumstance in which citizens or political leaders must choose between immediate advantage and the integrity of the system. People must sometimes accept electoral defeat, respect unfavorable court decisions and defend principles that benefit their opponents. When political disagreement becomes moral hostility, such restraint becomes harder. Political victory may begin to appear more important than the rules governing competition.
The republic depends upon citizens willing to preserve institutions even when those institutions prevent them from getting what they want.
When the Foundations Begin to Fail
These five foundations reinforce one another.
Economic opportunity gives citizens a stake in the future.
Fair institutions give them confidence in the rules.
Community creates belonging. S
hared facts make disagreement manageable.
Civic virtue sustains the willingness to preserve the system.
Their erosion can create a dangerous cycle.
People who believe they cannot get ahead may blame institutions they consider unfair. Social isolation makes it easier to view other groups as responsible. Competing information environments reinforce hostility. Political leaders and citizens become more willing to sacrifice restraint in pursuit of victory.
America has endured such pressures before. The Great Depression tested confidence in economic opportunity. The civil rights movement challenged a system that denied equal rights to millions. The Civil War demonstrated the catastrophic consequences when competing visions of the nation could no longer be reconciled peacefully.
These crises also reveal that constitutional endurance depends upon reform, institutional legitimacy and the ability to rebuild a shared national purpose.
The Constitution remains in place today. The more important question is whether the conditions that sustain it are growing weaker.
What Makes the Republic Worth Preserving?
A nation cannot remain united merely because its citizens are governed by the same laws.
They must believe that opportunity remains possible, that institutions operate fairly and that their neighbors’ success does not require their own failure.
The deepest danger arises when citizens conclude that their future depends upon defeating, excluding, depriving or stealing from other Americans rather than building a society in which they can all prosper.
Jefferson Memorial, Washington DC
The ultimate test of a republic is whether its citizens still recognize one another as legitimate participants in a shared national future. When political opponents become enemies who must be defeated at any cost, elections cease to be a means of resolving disagreement and become battles over who has the right to govern.
A constitution can establish the rules of that contest. Only the citizens can decide whether those rules—and the republic itself—remain worth preserving.
Why the American Founders believed that free elections were only the beginning of a free society.
Democracy is one of the great achievements of human civilization. The idea that ordinary people should select their leaders, determine the direction of their country and peacefully replace those in power represents an extraordinary departure from thousands of years of human history.
For much of that history, people lived under kings, emperors, military rulers and hereditary elites. Government was imposed upon them. Democracy introduced the revolutionary proposition that government derives its authority from the consent of the governed.
Yet democracy carries an inherent contradiction. While allowing people to choose their government is a beautiful principle, the political process through which those choices are made can be remarkably ugly.
Elections encourage competition, division, personal attacks and promises that cannot be fulfilled. Political parties organize people into opposing camps. Candidates exaggerate differences, question their opponents’ motives and convince supporters that the future of the country depends on their victory.
Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914), in The Devil’s Dictionary, offered a cynical definition of politics: “A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.”
Democracy gives people the right to choose their government. It also gives political winners the opportunity to exercise power over those who voted against them.
The American Founders understood this danger. They sought to create a constitutional republic that would preserve popular government while restraining the political power that electoral victories conferred.
The Unavoidable Problem of Politics
People naturally disagree about the society in which they want to live.
Some favor higher taxes to fund public services. Others prefer lower taxes and greater private control over resources. People hold different religious beliefs, economic interests, cultural traditions and ideas about individual freedom.
These differences are inevitable in a free society. Indeed, the freedom to hold different opinions is among democracy’s greatest virtues.
But elections transform those differences into contests for political power.
Two neighbors may disagree about religion, education, taxation and immigration while maintaining a perfectly cordial relationship. Neither has the authority to impose his preferences on the other.
Politics changes that relationship. When one neighbor can enlist the power of government to advance his beliefs, their differences become much more consequential.
James Madison (1751–1836) recognized this problem in Federalist No. 10, published in 1787. He described competing groups organized around shared interests or passions as factions, and understood that they would always exist wherever people enjoyed liberty.
James Madison (1751-1836) by John Vanderlyn in 1816
Madison argued that eliminating factions would require destroying the freedom that allowed them to form. His objective was to control their harmful effects rather than eliminate political disagreement.
He distinguished between what he called a pure democracy, in which citizens govern directly, and a republic, in which elected representatives exercise governmental authority.
Madison believed that representative government, particularly across a large and diverse republic, could make it more difficult for any single faction to dominate the others. Representatives might refine public opinion through deliberation, while the diversity of interests would complicate efforts to assemble oppressive majorities.
The objective was to accommodate competing interests without allowing political winners to destroy the rights of political losers.
When the Majority Becomes a Threat
Democracy relies upon majority rule. When people disagree about public policy, voting provides a peaceful mechanism for reaching decisions.
But does winning 51% of the vote give a political majority the right to do whatever it wishes?
Suppose a majority decides to confiscate the property of a wealthy minority, prohibit the religious practices of an unpopular community or silence political opponents who challenge government policies.
Each decision might enjoy majority support. None would necessarily be just.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Cea Weaver of the Office to Protect Tenants, discuss plans to confiscate private real estate assets
The fundamental problem is that elections determine who exercises political authority, but they do not establish the moral limits of that authority.
A majority can be oppressive just as a king or dictator can be oppressive. The fact that political power is obtained democratically does not guarantee that it will be exercised fairly.
Furthermore, minorities are not simply the people who voted for the losing candidate. A citizen may support the winning party while belonging to a religious, ethnic or economic minority whose rights are threatened by the government.
Political coalitions change with every election. Individual rights must endure regardless of those changes.
The Founders understood that property rights, freedom of conscience, due process and equal treatment under the law required protections extending beyond ordinary electoral outcomes.
Democracy determines who has the authority to govern. A constitution establishes what government has the authority to do.
The challenge is to reconcile the right of the majority to govern with the right of every individual to remain free.
The Founders’ Constitutional Republic
The American Founders spent considerable time debating how to resolve this dilemma.
They had rejected the arbitrary authority of a monarchy but faced two competing dangers. A government that was too powerful could threaten liberty. One that was too weak could fail to enforce laws, maintain order or protect the nation.
Alexander Hamilton (1755–1804) advocated a stronger national government capable of addressing national interests. Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), writing from France, emphasized individual liberty and the dangers of centralized authority. The Anti-Federalists feared that the proposed Constitution did not adequately protect citizens against federal power.
Their objective was not the weakest possible government, but one powerful enough to govern and restrained enough to preserve liberty.
The resulting Constitution incorporated competing ideas rather than embracing any single political philosophy.
It established a representative republic in which the people would select their leaders, but those leaders would operate within defined boundaries.
Power was divided among the legislative, executive and judicial branches, and between federal and state governments. Elections would provide accountability, while independent institutions and competing centers of authority would restrain abuses of power.
Madison captured the challenge in Federalist No. 51 in 1788: “You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
The Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791, added explicit protections for fundamental liberties, including freedom of religion, speech, assembly and due process.
The Constitution also made its foundational rules deliberately difficult to change. Ordinary legislation could be enacted by elected representatives, but constitutional amendments generally required approval by two-thirds of both houses of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states.
Public policy needed to respond to changing circumstances, while fundamental constitutional principles required a much broader consensus to alter.
The Founders’ achievement was imperfect. The original Constitution accommodated slavery and failed to secure equal rights for all Americans. Subsequent amendments abolished slavery, established equal protection and expanded voting rights.
That history illustrates both the importance of enduring constitutional protections and the necessity of preserving a mechanism to correct fundamental injustices.
A constitution must be durable without becoming incapable of reform.
Making Political Defeat Bearable
Constitutional restraint serves another important purpose: it reduces the stakes of political competition.
The more authority government exercises over people’s lives, the more consequential every election becomes.
If political victory determines not only taxes and public spending but also religious expression, educational choices, property rights, business opportunities and personal freedoms, the consequences of winning or losing become enormous.
Political opponents may begin to view one another as existential threats. Compromise becomes dangerous because it might allow the opposing faction to gain power. Electoral defeat becomes frightening because the winners may fundamentally change the lives of those who opposed them.
“The people of America look around this political system and think that all this money, chasing all these political candidates, is a nightmare, and they’re right.” – Justice Elana Kagan, October 2026
George Washington (1732–1799) warned of this danger in his 1796 Farewell Address, describing “the alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge.”
Washington understood that partisan retaliation could become a recurring feature of government, with each victorious faction seeking to punish or reverse the actions of its predecessor.
The incentives of campaigning and governing are also fundamentally different.
Campaigns reward candidates for distinguishing themselves from opponents, mobilizing supporters and emphasizing disagreements. Governing a diverse society requires negotiation, restraint and recognition that political opponents remain citizens with legitimate interests.
Politicians may campaign as though winning an election grants them a mandate to remake society. A constitutional republic places limits on how far that mandate can reach.
The objective is to give government sufficient authority to perform its legitimate functions while protecting citizens from arbitrary interference. Laws, national defense, public infrastructure and the protection of individual rights all require effective institutions.
Likewise, constitutional protections should allow elected representatives to make ordinary policy decisions. A government incapable of acting would frustrate democratic accountability.
The challenge is to distinguish matters properly decided through elections from fundamental freedoms that should survive every election.
When those boundaries are respected, political competition becomes a contest over the direction of government rather than a struggle for control over society itself.
The Greater Achievement of a Free Society
Democracy is often celebrated because it allows people to choose the government they want. But in a society of millions of people with different interests and convictions, no government can satisfy everyone.
The more ambitious achievement is creating a society in which people can live freely even when they disagree with those exercising political power.
A free society requires more than the ability to choose its government. It requires space for people to live their lives beyond the reach of government. When government becomes the primary means of resolving every social disagreement, differences that people might otherwise accommodate become battles for political control.
The constitutional republic offers a different approach. Elections determine who governs, while foundational rights establish boundaries around what government may control.
The greatest achievement of such a system is not that everyone gets the government they want. It is that people can disagree about government without having to fight for control over every aspect of one another’s lives.
As we enter elections season, we must acknowledge that politics is often a very ugly business in a process to continue our dream of a stable democratic republic. We owe it to our nation to focus on electing leaders who will preserve our laws and rights, and not dissolve our great republic in the pursuit of a fictional purely democratic utopia.
While Americans argue over Gaza, Beijing is watching Taiwan.
China wants to dominate Asia, control waterways carrying trillions of dollars in commerce, and bring Taiwan under its rule. Standing in its way is potentially the United States.
So as America commits military resources to Middle Eastern conflicts and Americans increasingly question their country’s overseas role, China is pursuing two opportunities: expanding its power abroad and exploiting political divisions inside America.
The Trillion-Dollar Prize
Taiwan produces much of the world’s most advanced semiconductors. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, approximately $2.45 trillion in goods passed through the Taiwan Strait in 2022, representing more than one-fifth of global maritime trade.
Bloomberg Economics estimated that a major war involving China and the United States could cost the global economy approximately $10.6 trillion in its first year, equivalent to 9.6% of global GDP. The modeled losses include 6.6% of American GDP and 11% of China’s. A Chinese blockade could reduce global GDP by approximately 5%. The consequences would reach American retirement accounts, employment, manufacturing, automobiles and everyday consumer prices.
Beijing has steadily increased military exercises, maritime patrols and operations around Taiwan and the South China Sea. China seeks the ability to impose its will on Taiwan while limiting American intervention.
China Sees an Opening
On October 7, 2023, Hamas invaded Israel, murdering approximately 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages. The ensuing war drew American aircraft carriers, missile-defense systems, intelligence resources and diplomatic attention into successive confrontations involving Gaza, Lebanon, Iran and the Houthis.
Within weeks, foreign-policy researchers identified the opportunity that Beijing will exploit.
On November 9, 2023, Emil Avdaliani of the Stimson Center published For China and Russia, the Gaza War May Be a Blessing in Disguise. He explained that the wars in Gaza and Ukraine interfered with America’s strategic focus on the Indo-Pacific, giving China greater freedom to maneuver and time to prepare for competition over Taiwan.
He compared the opportunity to the years following September 11, when American attention was consumed by the wars on terrorism. The Gaza conflict also threatened the proposed India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor, a potential competitor to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
Two weeks after the Hamas attack, Ahmed Aboudouh of Chatham House published China’s Approach to the War in Gaza Is Not Anti-Israel. It’s Designed to Contain the US.
Aboudouh described Beijing’s posture as anti-Western neutrality. China avoided condemning Hamas’s atrocities while criticizing Israel and portraying America as a destabilizing force. Beijing was using sympathy for Palestinians to undermine American credibility, cultivate support among developing countries and strengthen its diplomatic position on Taiwan and Xinjiang.
Beijing also maintains an enormous economic relationship with Iran.
In April 2026, the U.S. Treasury Department reported that China purchased approximately 90% of Iran’s oil exports. The U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission estimated that Chinese purchases generated approximately $31.2 billion in Iranian oil revenue in 2025.
Those revenues support the Iranian government, whose military establishment finances and arms Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. Iran’s regional activities repeatedly demand American military resources and diplomatic attention.
China receives Iranian oil while Tehran’s confrontations with America complicate Washington’s ability to concentrate on Asia.
China’s American Information Campaign
China’s efforts to exploit the conflict have also reached American audiences.
In June 2024, Google’s Threat Analysis Group documented DRAGONBRIDGE, also known as Spamouflage, a vast online influence operation linked to the People’s Republic of China.
The network distributed videos, fabricated news-style broadcasts and social-media comments attacking American democracy and exploiting domestic controversies.
One of its targets was the American campus protests over Gaza.
Beginning in May 2024, Chinese-linked accounts circulated English-language material portraying American police actions against pro-Palestinian demonstrators as evidence of Western hypocrisy. The messaging contrasted the treatment of campus protesters with American support for demonstrations in Hong Kong.
The same network criticized American involvement in Ukraine and depicted American democracy as dysfunctional.
Google disrupted more than 10,000 instances of DRAGONBRIDGE activity across its platforms in the first quarter of 2024. During the first nine months of 2024, Google also terminated more than 22,000 YouTube channels linked to Chinese coordinated influence operations.
Although investigators found limited genuine audience engagement, the volume of fabricated content demonstrated Beijing’s capacity to manufacture political messaging and distribute it across thousands of accounts.
Follow the Money
An August 2023 New York Times investigation uncovered a sprawling financial network associated with Neville Roy Singham, an American technology entrepreneur living in Shanghai, with approximately $278 million in reported financial flows attributed to his broader network. Major organizations associated with the network include the People’s Forum, ANSWER Coalition, International People’s Assembly, CODEPINK and affiliated activist and media operations. These organizations have helped organize anti-Israel demonstrations, promote political campaigns and advance positions frequently aligned with Chinese Communist Party interests. The Times also documented Singham’s financial and operational connections to Chinese propaganda organizations. A July 2025 George Washington University study examined overlapping financial relationships, organizational cooperation and ideological alignment involving Singham-linked organizations and groups associated with Shut It Down for Palestine. The $278 million represents broader network financial flows rather than verified direct funding of each organization.
The People’s Forum’s organizing activities became visible immediately after October 7. It co-organized a Times Square demonstration the following day, helped mobilize the November 4 march in Washington, and joined the nationwide Shut It Down for Palestine campaign. On April 29, 2024, more than 100 activists, including Columbia protesters, reportedly gathered at its Manhattan headquarters, where executive director Manolo De Los Santos urged them to “give Joe Biden a hot summer.” These events demonstrate the organization’s participation in street demonstrations and campus-related organizing, alongside a much broader student-led protest movement.
Beyond activist organizations, Chinese government agencies, companies and associated entities have developed financial relationships with American universities, policy institutions, media organizations and Washington lobbying firms.
U.S. Department of Education disclosures identify approximately $4.9 billion in Chinese-source gifts and contracts across roughly 8,000 transactions, making China the second-largest reported foreign funding source. These relationships reach institutions responsible for educating future American leaders and developing advanced technologies. The funding includes research, education and commercial arrangements, while its scale raises questions about academic independence, research security and foreign influence.
Chinese financial relationships have also reached American think tanks and policy institutes, where donor disclosures are less comprehensive and researchers help shape congressional testimony, national security debates and foreign-policy recommendations.
China’s presence in Washington is more directly measurable. According to OpenSecrets, Chinese government and other China-related foreign principals accounted for approximately $563 million in registered foreign-agent spending from 2016 through 2025, including approximately $453 million attributed to the Chinese government. Much of this money supported Chinese state-media operations, while other expenditures financed lobbying and public relations. U.S. Justice Department records, for example, document the Chinese Embassy’s engagement of Squire Patton Boggs to advise on congressional legislation, defense appropriations and other matters before Congress. Chinese-owned companies have separately spent millions lobbying over trade, technology restrictions and federal regulation.
From Gaza to Taiwan: The Same Organizations
CODEPINK‘s activism extends far beyond opposition to Israel. Its China Is Not Our Enemy campaign opposes American military preparations in Asia and criticizes U.S. support for Taiwan. Following Nancy Pelosi’s 2022 visit, CODEPINK characterized the trip as a dangerous escalation. Its Reject the US Militarism in the Pacific campaign challenges American military infrastructure and partnerships involving Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Guam and Australia.
The ANSWER Coalition similarly opposes American military expansion in the Pacific, including military bases and exercises involving Okinawa and South Korea. Both organizations describe their positions as opposition to militarization and overseas intervention.
The overlap is striking. Organizations mobilizing against American support for Israel also oppose military commitments and partnerships central to American deterrence in Asia. Beijing has its own reasons for welcoming those positions: weakening America’s regional alliances would make coercion of Taiwan easier. The alignment of these policy positions is documented; whether Chinese funding or direction caused them is a separate question.
The Real Strategic Contest
American deterrence around Taiwan depends on naval forces, regional bases, military cooperation with Japan and the Philippines, defense spending and the political willingness to confront Chinese coercion.
China’s military buildup raises the cost of American intervention around Taiwan. Its influence operations exploit the political divisions that could make such intervention harder to sustain. Meanwhile, conflicts involving Iran and its proxies continue to consume American resources and attention.
A Taiwan war could destroy $10.6 trillion in global economic output in its first year. China’s disclosed financial relationships with American institutions and media operations amount to billions of dollars across multiple years, much of it spent on activities unrelated to political influence. Even a relatively small, effective influence campaign could matter enormously if it altered America’s willingness to defend Taiwan.
For a few billion dollars spent influencing Americans to be anti-Israel and pro-Iran, China is targeting several TRILLIONS of dollars in Asia.
Sources
Stimson Center — For China and Russia, the Gaza War May Be a Blessing in Disguise, November 2023.
Chatham House — China’s Approach to the War in Gaza Is Not Anti-Israel. It’s Designed to Contain the US, October 2023.
U.S. Treasury Department, April 2026, reporting on China’s purchases of Iranian oil.
U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission, March 2026, research on Iranian oil revenues.
Google Threat Analysis Group, June 2024, research on DRAGONBRIDGE.
Google congressional testimony, 2024, coordinated Chinese influence operations.
George Washington University Program on Extremism — CCP Influence in U.S. Pro-Palestinian Activism, July 2025.
The New York Times — A Global Web of Chinese Propaganda Leads to a U.S. Tech Mogul, August 2023.
CODEPINK — China Is Not Our Enemy.
CODEPINK — Reject the US Militarism in the Pacific.
ANSWER Coalition — Islanders Unite to Resist a New Pacific War.
Center for Strategic and International Studies — Taiwan Strait maritime trade research.
Bloomberg Economics — The $10 Trillion Fight: Modeling a US-China War Over Taiwan, February 2026.
Congressional Research Service — Section 117 of the Higher Education Act: Reporting of Foreign Gifts and Contracts, March 2026.
OpenSecrets — Foreign Lobby Watch, 2016–2025.
U.S. Department of Justice — FARA semiannual reports, including Squire Patton Boggs’ representation of the Chinese Embassy.
Harvard/University of Connecticut Crowd Counting Consortium — U.S. protest and campus encampment data, 2023–2024.
The People’s Forum — October 2023 statements and protest mobilization announcements.
Reporting on the People’s Forum’s April 29, 2024 organizing meeting in Manhattan.
On February 20, 1939, more than 20,000 Americans packed Madison Square Garden beneath enormous swastikas, American flags and a portrait of George Washington. The German American Bund called its rally “Free America,” while its leader, Fritz Kuhn (1896–1951), promoted Nazi ideology, denounced Jewish influence and envisioned a radically different American society.
The crowd looked admiringly toward Hitler’s Germany, but its ambitions were directed toward America.
Crowd at Madison Square Garden allied with Nazi Germany, February 1939
On October 17, 2026, France erupted in demonstrations over living costs, public services and economic inequality. Rioters burned vehicles, looted businesses and attacked public buildings. In Paris, protesters climbed the monument to Marianne, symbol of the French Republic, and raised the French tricolor alongside a Palestinian flag.
The grievances were French. The revolutionary symbolism was international.
A Palestinian flag at a demonstration about Gaza represents a foreign cause. At a demonstration about French economic policy, it suggests something more: a foreign struggle adopted as a symbol of domestic upheaval.
Across different eras and ideologies, foreign struggles have supplied the symbols for movements seeking to remake their own countries.
A Generation Looking for a Different Future
Revolutionary politics becomes attractive when people lose faith in their institutions and their prospects for a better life.
The Great Depression shattered economic security for millions of Americans. The German American Bund exploited the resulting insecurity, offering national renewal, authoritarian certainty and enemies to blame for the country’s troubles.
Nearly a century later, Bernie Sanders’s 2016 campaign mobilized younger Americans disillusioned with an establishment they believed protected wealthy donors and political insiders. Revelations about Democratic National Committee favoritism toward Hillary Clinton reinforced those suspicions, while subsequent political upheaval deepened distrust of established leadership.
COVID disrupted education and livelihoods, inflation and housing costs eroded economic opportunity, and artificial intelligence raised fears about the future of employment. The concealment of Biden’s decline and Harris’s selection without a new nationwide primary reinforced perceptions of political decisions controlled by insiders. Harvard’s 2026 Youth Poll found that only 15% of young Americans trusted the federal government.
For people who believe established institutions protect the wealthy and powerful while their own opportunities diminish, promises to redistribute wealth, ownership and political authority become increasingly attractive. That dissatisfaction is producing electoral victories.
The Revolution Enters City Hall
The Democratic Socialists of America have translated economic frustration into electoral power, most visibly through Zohran Mamdani’s 2025 election as mayor of New York City.
Celebrating his victory, the DSA described a defeat for billionaires, corporations and the Democratic Party establishment. Its agenda connected housing, public transportation, childcare, policing and for some bizarre non-local reason, “Palestinian liberation,” within a campaign for what the organization explicitly called a “political revolution.”
The DSA advocates public ownership of major industries, higher taxes on wealth, stronger tenant protections and a larger government role in housing and essential services. These proposals would change who owns economic resources, who makes investment decisions and how much authority government exercises over everyday life.
The movement also reaches younger Americans through influential online broadcasters. Hasan Piker, one of the most prominent socialist commentators on the internet, combines criticism of American capitalism with outspoken support for Palestinian Arab violence. He promoted Mamdani’s successful mayoral campaign, hosted him on his livestream and appeared at campaign events. In April 2026, Piker extended his electoral involvement to Michigan, campaigning alongside Abdul El-Sayed in his U.S. Senate race.
Anti-Israel influencers of the alt-left Mehdi Hasan, Hasan Piker and Jamaal Bowman celebrate Zohran Mandani’s victory for NYC mayor in November 2025
The revolution has an economic program, a political organization, influential broadcasters and elected officials. It also has a flag.
Why Palestine Became the Revolutionary Symbol
Palestine offers a ready-made narrative for movements organized around the struggle between privilege and liberation. The popular revolutionary image casts wealthy, technologically advanced, Western-backed White Israelis against poorer, brown Palestinians fighting dispossession. That imagery translates readily into American arguments about racial inequality, colonialism, policing and economic power.
The narrative fictionalizes history and present. Jews are indigenous to Israel, and its “white” Ashkenazi population is less than one-third of the Israeli population. But Israel’s prosperity makes the image of privileged rulers and dispossessed subjects politically compelling.
Representative Rashida Tlaib and former Ohio state senator Nina Turner made the domestic connection explicit in their 2024 essay Black Liberation and Palestinian Liberation Are Interconnected, linking Detroit, Cleveland and Gaza through a common struggle against injustice. Others have done the same like CNN’s Marc Lamont Hill back in 2015.
The anti-Israel organization Within Our Lifetime has combined “Globalize the Intifada” with slogans including “Land Back,” “Kill Capitalism” and “Defund the Police.” The vocabulary connects Palestinian nationalism with American disputes over property, policing and political authority.
On October 8, 2023, one day after Hamas massacred Israeli civilians, demonstrators gathered beneath Palestinian flags in Times Square. A speaker mocked the victims of the Nova music festival, while protesters chanted slogans including “Resistance is justified” and “Globalize the intifada.”
The latter slogan called for extending a Palestinian Arab slaughter beyond its original geography, invoking a violent history which included suicide bombings and attacks on civilians.
Across Western democracies, Palestine has become more than a foreign policy cause for many revolutionary activists. It offers a common identity for movements seeking substantial changes to established economic and political institutions.
Canary Mission video on the socialist-jihadi alliance coming for the United States
The Old Accusation Returns
Every revolutionary narrative needs an explanation for why some people possess wealth and power while others struggle. When that explanation turns into a search for a privileged group supposedly responsible for everyone else’s suffering, an ancient accusation becomes available: Jews control the system.
The German American Bund accused Jews of exercising illegitimate influence over American finance, politics and public opinion. Father Charles Coughlin (1891–1979) brought similar conspiracies into millions of American homes through radio, presenting Jewish power as an explanation for the economic suffering of ordinary Americans.
The accusation survives across otherwise opposing political camps. On the far right, Nick Fuentes promotes conspiracies about Jewish control of American institutions. In entertainment, Ye has accused Jewish executives of controlling and exploiting Black performers. In a different context, American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten described American Jews in 2021 as part of the “ownership class,” arguing that Jews were keeping minorities down.
The danger intensifies when the language of liberation is used to excuse violence against people assigned to the category of oppressor.
“No Kings Rally and March” in Chicago on June 14, 2025 featured Palestinian flags and call for “Revolution” (Photo by The TRiiBE)
Following October 7, Cornell professor Russell Rickford described Hamas’s breach of the Gaza barrier as “exhilarating.” CAIR executive director Nihad Awad invoked Martin Luther King Jr.’s observation about riots on the morning of the massacre and later expressed happiness that Palestinians had broken through the barrier.
The consequences of importing a foreign conflict into American life became terrifyingly tangible in March 2026, when an attacker drove a vehicle carrying incendiary materials into Temple Israel in suburban Detroit while children and adults were inside. Abdul El-Sayed, then campaigning for the United States Senate, condemned the attack but also discussed the attacker’s family losses in Lebanon, explaining that “hurt people hurt people.”
The attacker brought a foreign war to an American synagogue. The political explanation brought the grievances of that war into the response. The victims were Americans, including children gathered in a place of worship who had nothing to do with a war thousands of miles away, yet the socialist-revolutionary lens pivoted longingly to the attacker.
The Stakes Extend Beyond Jews
The German American Bund’s vision in 1939 threatened far more than America’s Jews. Its members admired an authoritarian foreign power and sought to transform the political and social character of their own country.
Today’s movements pursue different visions through different means, including democratic elections. Their ambitions to change ownership, wealth distribution, policing, education and government authority will shape the lives of Americans far beyond those attending demonstrations.
Jews have particular reason to recognize the danger when political movements portray them as privileged beneficiaries of an unjust system. History has shown how readily that accusation becomes collective blame. But the consequences of sweeping transformations of political and economic power extend far beyond the Jewish community. Jews will suffer twice – first as Jews and then as Americans – regardless of whether they refer to themselves as American Jews or Jewish Americans.
The revolution is local. It waves a foreign flag. And the country it seeks to remake is our own.
An Israeli construction company sees a government tender to build residential housing. It prepares a bid and submits it.
It does not have to win the tender or break ground. Merely submitting the bid would be enough to expose it to American sanctions.
Senators Chris Coons (Delaware), Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts), Ron Wyden (Oregon) and Ruben Gallego (Arizona) have introduced legislation targeting construction in E1, the area between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim. The legislation would impose sanctions on foreign persons involved in construction there, expressly including those “submitting a bid for E1 tenders.”
Warren makes the consequence explicit: those who facilitate construction in E1 should understand that they “risk losing access to the U.S. financial system.”
That is an extraordinary penalty for bidding to build homes in an allied country.
And the piece of land that has generated this response is remarkably small. E1 covers roughly 12 square kilometers, or 4.6 square miles. The entire West Bank is roughly 5,655 square kilometers. E1 therefore represents about 0.2% of the West Bank—roughly one five-hundredth of its territory.
And that sliver of undeveloped land has generated calls to reach for one of America’s most powerful economic weapons.
The United States has long used its dominance of the international financial system as one of its most powerful foreign-policy tools. Iran has faced sanctions over its nuclear program and other activities. North Korea has been subjected to extensive sanctions over its nuclear and ballistic-missile programs. Russia has faced sweeping sanctions connected to its military aggression.
American sanctions can also reach companies outside those countries. Do business with an American adversary and a foreign company may discover that it has to choose between that relationship and access to the American financial system.
Congress has occasionally been willing to impose that choice on allies.
Turkey is a NATO member. Yet the United States sanctioned Turkey’s Presidency of Defense Industries after Ankara purchased Russia’s S-400 air-defense system from Rosoboronexport, Russia’s state arms exporter. The transaction involved an advanced weapons system, an American adversary and concerns about the security of American military technology.
European companies encountered the same American financial power over Nord Stream 2. Congress enacted sanctions aimed at companies participating in construction of the pipeline, including businesses from American allies, for engaging with a Russian pipeline carrying Russian gas into Europe. Congress viewed it as increasing European dependence on Russian energy and strengthening Moscow’s geopolitical leverage.
E1 presents something completely different.
There is no Russia on the other side of the transaction. No Iran. No North Korea. No weapons purchase or nuclear technology. No American adversary receiving the proceeds.
There is an Israeli government tender to construct residential homes in the immediate suburb of its capital.
Nor is this simply an initiative of four senators.
Fifteen additional Democratic senators have joined them: Michael Bennet (Colorado), Tammy Duckworth (Illinois), Martin Heinrich (New Mexico), Tim Kaine (Virginia), Mark Kelly (Arizona), Andy Kim (New Jersey), Jeff Merkley (Oregon), Chris Murphy (Connecticut), Patty Murray (Washington), Jack Reed (Rhode Island), Brian Schatz (Hawaii), Adam Schiff (California), Elissa Slotkin (Michigan), Chris Van Hollen (Maryland) and Peter Welch (Vermont).
That brings the proposal’s Democratic Senate support to 19 senators.
Senators Elizabeth Warren and Chris Coons
The United States developed financial sanctions to confront hostile states, weapons programs and transactions with American adversaries. It is a powerful tool meant to confront grave risks to America. Yet in this proposal, the triggering transaction is an Israeli housing project occupying roughly one five-hundredth of the West Bank, which poses zero threat to the United States.
The Democratic senators sponsoring the legislation describe E1 construction as a threat to a future Palestinian state, presumably because the Palestinian Authority demands a country devoid of any Jews and it must include Jerusalem. Their proposed response is to make companies and individuals participating in that construction grounds for exclusion from the American financial system.
For these 19 Democratic senators, countering Palestinian Arab aspirations has become a threat to the United States.
That is the question their bill puts before Congress: Should the financial weapon America has used against adversaries and national-security threats now be turned against businesses of a close ally because they bid to build homes on 0.2% of the West Bank?
ACTION ITEM
Contact these senators about their proposed bill on E1 and find out whether the Democratic Party has become so unmoored from its mission of protecting Americans that it is using its greatest financial weapon to serve Palestinian Arabs objecting to Jewish homes.
Sen. Chris Coons Washington office (202) 224-5042, Wilmington (302) 573-6345, Dover (302) 736-5601
Sen. Elizabeth Warren Washington office (202) 224-4543, Boston (617) 565-3170, Springfield (413) 788-2690
The United States has maintained an official list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations since 1997. After September 11, that list increasingly became a catalogue of jihadist groups: al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, ISIS-K, ISIS-West Africa, JNIM, Hizbul Mujahideen, the Islamic Jihad Union and the Haqqani Network.
By George W. Bush’s second term, every organization he designated that remains on the list today was Islamist. Roughly 91% of Barack Obama’s first-term additions were Islamist, as were nearly all of his second-term additions. Every surviving FTO designated during Donald Trump’s first term was Islamist.
Then the designations nearly stopped.
Joe Biden added just four organizations that remain designated today, all during 2021: two ISIS affiliates in Africa and two Colombian FARC splinter groups.
Trump returned to office and immediately took the list somewhere else. On his first day back, he initiated a process to designate international cartels and transnational criminal organizations as FTOs. A month later, the Sinaloa Cartel, Jalisco New Generation Cartel, Gulf Cartel, Cartel del Noreste, La Nueva Familia Michoacana, Carteles Unidos, MS-13 and Tren de Aragua were added.
The terrorist list was heading south of the border.
Administration
Current FTOs originally designated during term
Islamist
Islamist share
Clinton II
15
7
47%
George W. Bush I
12
8
67%
George W. Bush II
3
3
100%
Obama I
11
10
91%
Obama II
12
11–12
92–100%
Trump I
10
10
100%
Biden
4
2
50%
Trump II*
25
3
12%
*Through September 2026. Counts reflect organizations currently designated as FTOs and assign each to the presidential term of its original designation. Organizations subsequently removed from the list are excluded.
The numbers reveal two abrupt breaks. Biden’s four years produced only four surviving additions, all during his first year. Trump II has already produced 25 – more than Obama over two full terms – while the Islamist share has collapsed from 100% during Trump’s first term to 12% during his second.
The explanation lies partly 2,000 miles south of Washington, DC.
The Biden years brought close to an open border policy for America’s southern border. Behind the millions of encounters stood another problem: criminal organizations controlling routes north, smuggling people and narcotics, collecting payments and using violence to protect their territory and businesses.
Trump returned treating that infrastructure as a national-security threat.
His January 20, 2025 order described cartels as using assassination, terror and brute force to control illegal traffic across the southern border. That same day, he declared a national emergency there and directed the government to target cartels, foreign gangs, smugglers and trafficking networks.
“It is the policy of the United States to ensure the total elimination of these organizations’ presence in the United States and their ability to threaten the territory, safety, and security of the United States through their extraterritorial command-and-control structures, thereby protecting the American people and the territorial integrity of the United States.” – President Trump order on making cartels specially designated terrorist organizations
A month later, eight of them were FTOs.
That sequence helps explain one of the stranger contradictions surrounding Trump. He is frequently portrayed as a president whose terrorism policies are particularly focused on Muslims, yet his second administration has directed the FTO machinery overwhelmingly toward non-Islamist organizations in Latin America and elsewhere.
President Donald Trump signs order making drug cartels in Latin America FTOs
The geography of American counterterrorism has moved.
After September 11, Washington looked thousands of miles east for foreign organizations threatening Americans. But the border crisis forced attention south, where cartels and gangs profit from the movement of people, drugs and money toward the United States.
For years, the border debate concentrated on the person arriving: who should enter, who qualifies for asylum and who should be removed. Trump’s FTO policy moves the focus farther upstream, toward the organizations controlling the routes that bring them there.
After September 11, America built an enormous counterterrorism apparatus to pursue foreign organizations threatening Americans from the other side of the world.
Trump is increasingly turning that apparatus toward the ones operating on America’s doorstep.
Two events separated by three months in 2021 delivered the same message to Islamist movements confronting more powerful enemies:
Keep fighting. Keep waiting. Eventually the infidels leave.
The first came in Israel.
In May 2021, Hamas launched rockets toward Jerusalem and Israeli cities, casting itself as the defender of Al-Aqsa and Palestinian Arab families facing possible eviction in Sheikh Jarrah.
Eleven days later came a ceasefire and the Israelis never moved forward with the evictions.
Immediately after the fight, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research’s June 2021 poll described a “paradigm shift” toward Hamas and armed struggle. 77% of Palestinian Arabs believed Hamas had won, versus 1% who thought Israel had won. And 65% believed Hamas had achieved its declared objectives regarding Sheikh Jarrah and Al-Aqsa.
The perceived lesson was simple: Violence worked.
Then came Afghanistan a few months later.
On August 15, 2021, the Taliban returned to Kabul, twenty years after the United States had removed it from power. The lesson for jihadist movements was not that they needed to defeat a stronger enemy. They needed to outlast it.
As described at the time in Gaza, The Terrorist Enclave, Hamas met with the Taliban and congratulated it for expelling Western forces from Afghanistan.
By June 2023, Palestinian confidence had moved beyond believing Hamas could win a confrontation. PCPSR asked Palestinian Arabs whether Israel, then celebrating its 75th anniversary, would survive to celebrate its 100th. 66% said no. Only 27% believed Israel would still exist. Another 51% believed Palestinian Arabs would eventually recover historic Palestine and return refugees to their former villages and cities.
Just four months later came October 7.
Nearly three years of war have weakened that opinion – in the near-term. As FirstOneThrough detailed in Palestinian Arabs Turn Inward, But Not Away From Hamas, support for armed struggle has fallen sharply and only 20% of Palestinian Arabs now believe Hamas won the Gaza war but 89% believe Hamas will continue to exist in some capacity.
Weakened but waiting. “Resistance” with resolve.
Which brings the argument from the Taliban and Hamas to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Iran is making the same wager on time. That it can outlast the United States and send it packing much as the Taliban did in Afghanistan.
But for the United States, Iran is not Afghanistan.
Iran has called America the “Great Satan” since 1979 and built a regional military network directed against American forces and allies. Iran has developed increasingly long-range ballistic missiles and pursued nuclear weapons capabilities that could threaten far beyond its borders.
Afghanistan did neither.
Iran also sits on the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s petroleum consumption passes. Disruption there reaches energy markets and economies around the world.
Afghanistan had no comparable leverage over the global economy.
America had no long-term goals of staying in Afghanistan. It was not going to keep thousands of troops and pour billions of dollars in a region thousands of miles from its shores to make sure girls went to school and women had equal rights.
But Iran is a real concern for the entire western world, both militarily and economically.
The current U.S. war has already achieved important aims by severely degrading Iran’s nuclear, missile and proxy capabilities. But degraded is not finished.
Iran does not need to reverse its losses today. It only needs to survive long enough for politics to change.
And two elections are approaching. Israelis vote on October 27 and Americans vote in November 3.
For Iran, Hamas and the broader jihadist world, those are more than elections. They are milestones testing the strategy of patience.
While the strategic logic for Israel and U.S. to continue the fight may be sound, their citizens may vote differently. And that is what the jihadists are waiting to observe.
Israel cannot leave Israel. America cannot simply walk away from an Iran threatening its forces and allies, pursuing nuclear and long-range missile capabilities, and holding a critical artery of the global economy at risk.
But jihadist strategy places a different bet: Can they wait until Israelis and Americans vote to stop fighting?
The summer of 2021 taught Islamists that they don’t have to win the wars against more powerful foes. Iran has ten more weeks to stall negotiations and wait for democracies to decide whether to pursue long-term strategic benefits or move on to more immediate matters.
Democracies have elections. Their enemies know it.
Will Israelis and Americans turn their elections into the jihadists’ exit strategy.
Data centers have become one of America’s favorite environmental villains. Critics argue that they use too much land, consume too much water and strain the electric grid. Communities increasingly fight proposed facilities on environmental grounds.
The concerns over electricity are real. But put data centers alongside another ubiquitous American land use — golf courses — and the environmental picture looks very different.
Golf uses dramatically more land and direct water and requires harmful pesticides to maintain its turf. Data centers consume dramatically more electricity. And data centers produce roughly four times the overall economic impact already – before the upcoming artificial intelligence boom kicks in.
Metric
U.S. Data Centers
U.S. Golf Courses
Facilities / courses
~3,600 operational
16,034 courses at 13,975 facilities
Land
No authoritative national total; far below golf
~2.3 million acres
Direct water use
~17 billion gallons/year (2023)
~531 billion gallons/year (2024)
Electricity
176 TWh/year (2023)
~2.4 TWh/year*
Pesticides / herbicides
Not material
Regularly used on maintained turf
Total economic contribution / impact
$926.9 billion (2024)
$226.5 billion
Jobs supported
5.5 million
~1.65 million
*The national golf electricity estimate is older and should be treated as an order-of-magnitude comparison rather than a current industry census.
Start with volume. There is no universally accepted definition of a data center, so counts vary depending on whether campuses, buildings and individual facilities are counted separately. An August 2026 tracker identifies about 3,579 operational U.S. data centers and roughly 4,700 when facilities under construction and planned are included. Pew Research Center similarly reported in April that the country had more than 3,000 operational data centers. (DC Map) Golf is considerably more widespread. The latest National Golf Foundation figures count 16,034 courses at 13,975 facilities in the United States. (American Golf Industry Coalition)
Then there is land.
The USGA has estimated that American golf courses occupy nearly 2.3 million acres. (USGA) There is no similarly authoritative national accounting of the acreage occupied by data centers. Rather than manufacture precision from commercial databases, the relevant comparison is scale: America’s golf footprint runs into millions of acres, while several thousand data centers occupy a small fraction of that amount.
Water produces an even more startling comparison.
American golf facilities applied 1.63 million acre-feet of water in 2024, according to the latest Golf Course Environmental Profile survey. That equals approximately 531 billion gallons. To golf’s credit, that represents a 31% decline since 2005 as courses have closed and surviving facilities have become more efficient. (GCSAA)
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimated that U.S. data centers directly consumed approximately 66 billion liters of water in 2023, or roughly 17 billion gallons. (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) So American golf courses use roughly 31 times as much water as data centers directly consume onsite.
Data centers also have an indirect water footprint because generating electricity can consume substantial amounts of water. Golf similarly has indirect resource requirements associated with electricity, fertilizer, chemicals, equipment and maintenance. The 31-to-1 comparison is specifically between water applied at golf facilities and direct water consumed at data centers — not their respective total lifecycle water footprints.
Chemicals produce another imbalance, although one that cannot responsibly be reduced to a current national poundage figure.
Golf courses maintain enormous areas of highly managed turf using fungicides, herbicides, insecticides and other treatments. GCSAA’s national pest-management research confirms continued use of those conventional chemicals while also finding greater use of non-pesticide practices and reductions or little change in reliance on conventional chemistries between its major surveys. (GCSAA)
Data centers, by contrast, do not require herbicides, fungicides and insecticides as a significant part of their core operation. They may have ordinary landscaping needs, but chemicals are not to computing what turf treatment is to golf.
There is one environmental measure where the comparison flips completely: electricity.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimated that U.S. data centers consumed 176 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2023, approximately 4.4% of total U.S. electricity consumption. Its June 2026 update projects that data centers could reach 11.8% of U.S. electricity consumption by 2030, with scenarios ranging from 9.5% to 15.3%. (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)
Golf isn’t remotely comparable. A U.S. Department of Energy analysis estimated golf-course electricity consumption at approximately 2.4 TWh annually, with a typical course consuming about 250,000 to 500,000 kWh and irrigation pumping accounting for 25% to 50% of course electricity use. The estimate is old, so it should not be mistaken for a current measurement. But even substantial growth would leave golf far below the electricity requirements of data centers. (U.S. Department of Energy)
Data centers are power infrastructure in a way golf courses simply are not. But power is being converted into something: economic output.
A 2026 PwC study commissioned by the Data Center Coalition calculated that the U.S. data-center industry contributed $926.9 billion to GDP in 2024, supported 5.5 million jobs and generated $204.4 billion in federal, state and local taxes. (Data Center Coalition)
Golf is also a significant American industry. Its national economic-impact study calculated $101.7 billion in direct economic activity and $226.5 billion when direct, indirect and induced effects are included, supporting nearly 1.65 million jobs and $80.1 billion of wage income. (GCSAA)
America has decided that using millions of acres and hundreds of billions of gallons of water for recreation is ordinary, while communities increasingly treat far smaller amounts of land and direct water used for digital infrastructure as an environmental crisis.
That doesn’t make data centers environmentally harmless. It identifies the environmental challenge they actually present: Power.
Data centers consumed 176 TWh in 2023 and could approach 12% of America’s electricity consumption by 2030. That growth demands generation, transmission and grid investment on an extraordinary scale.
The country should scrutinize where that electricity will come from, who pays for the infrastructure required to deliver it and whether utilities can add generation quickly enough without shifting costs onto existing customers.
Golf uses the land. Golf uses the water. Data centers use the power.
The question for data centers isn’t whether America can spare the acreage or the water. It is whether America can build the electricity infrastructure quickly enough to support an industry already contributing nearly $1 trillion to the economy and will drive the innovation and jobs of the future.
Congress did not arrive at legislation protecting Hamas overnight. It arrived there one bill at a time.
For decades, debates over Israel revolved around diplomacy. Republicans and Democrats argued over settlements, negotiations, Jerusalem, and the contours of a future Palestinian state. Even lawmakers sharply critical of Israel generally framed their proposals around advancing a negotiated two-state solution. The disagreement was over how peace should be achieved, not whether Israel had the right to defend itself against terrorist organizations.
In 2020, as the Trump Administration unveiled its peace plan and Israel considered extending sovereignty to portions of the West Bank, progressive lawmakers introduced legislation preventing American assistance from supporting annexation. Whether one believed annexation was prudent or unwise, the objective remained fundamentally political. These bills sought to influence the outcome of negotiations and preserve the possibility of a future Palestinian state. The debate was about borders, diplomacy, and competing visions for peace.
That bill did not stand in isolation.
In 2019, Representative Betty McCollum (D-MN) also introduced legislation prohibiting U.S. assistance from supporting the military detention of Palestinian minors. On its face, the proposal carried moral appeal. No civilized society wants children caught in war, and few slogans resonate more powerfully than protecting minors.
Yet the legislation missed the point. Israel’s military justice system does not prosecute minors because they are children. It prosecutes minors accused of security offenses, including violent rioting, firebomb attacks, shootings, stabbings, and participation in terrorist organizations. Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine have all recruited teenagers into violent activity for decades.
Arab minors caught on camera right before they stab Israelis
The debate was no longer centered on where Israel’s borders should ultimately lie. It was becoming a debate over whether Congress should restrict Israel’s ability to prosecute those participating in terrorism.
That evolution became unmistakable after October 7.
The largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust might reasonably have been expected to produce overwhelming congressional support for dismantling Hamas. Instead, it accelerated an entirely different legislative movement.
Arabs in Gaza take the body of Israeli woman they had just killed into Gaza where the crowds pelted her body and spat on her
One proposal after another sought to block the military tools Israel argued were necessary to fight the war. Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) repeatedly forced votes to halt major arms sales. Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Representative Delia Ramirez (D-IL), and others introduced the Block the Bombs Act. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) sought to impose additional legal restrictions before military assistance could proceed.
US Senator Chris Van Hollen attends a Senate subcommittee on the Justice Departments proposed 2027 budget, on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 19, 2026.
Supporters presented these bills as humanitarian safeguards designed to protect civilians and uphold international law. Their practical effect, however, would have been to deny or delay weapons while Israel was engaged in combat against a U.S.-designated terrorist organization that had murdered, raped, tortured, kidnapped, and burned civilians alive.
Congress was no longer principally debating the contours of a future peace agreement. It was debating how much of Israel’s wartime capability should be withheld while the war itself was still being fought.
And it continued.
In July 2026, Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) introduced an amendment eliminating the entire $3.3 billion annual Foreign Military Financing package for Israel. Previous proposals had sought to condition aid or block particular weapons systems. Massie’s proposal went much further. It would have ended America’s regular military assistance altogether.
The amendment failed by a wide margin. But 104 members of Congress voted for it, including 103 Democrats alongside the bill’s Republican author.
That vote tells a larger story than the amendment itself.
Over the course of a few years, the legislative progression moved from opposing territorial annexation, to restricting Israeli counterterrorism practices, to limiting the weapons available to fight Hamas, and finally to questioning whether the United States should continue military assistance at all. Each bill built upon the political space created by the one before it. What once occupied the outer edge of congressional debate gradually became part of mainstream legislative discussion.
The coalition itself is unusual. Rashida Tlaib approaches the issue through Palestinian nationalism. Bernie Sanders emphasizes humanitarian law and civilian casualties. Chris Van Hollen argues for greater legal oversight of military assistance. Thomas Massie opposes foreign aid as a matter of constitutional principle. They arrive from very different ideological traditions, yet increasingly find themselves casting the same vote.
For generations, support for Israel was one of Washington’s few enduring bipartisan constants. That consensus has not disappeared; overwhelming majorities in Congress still support the alliance. But the terms of the debate have unmistakably changed.
Six years ago, Congress debated how American policy might influence a two-state solution. Today, members openly introduce legislation that would limit—or eliminate altogether—the military support Israel says it needs to defeat jihadist organizations committed not to coexistence, but to its destruction.
That is the real story of the Jihadi Protection Bills. Not that any single measure became law. But that, one bill at a time, the center of the American political conversation migrated from shaping the peace process to constraining Israel’s ability to wage war against jihadist movements to its basic ability to protect itself in a deeply hostile region.
