Pro-Israel Dem. Haley Stevens says anti-Zionism has become a hate movement in America -interview

Haley Stevens has just lost her Democratic primary race in Michigan, but she arrived in Israel with an uncompromising message: she believes anti-Zionism has become a hate movement in America and parts of the West.

“I believe that anti-Zionism is a hate movement that has taken over in America and throughout parts of the West,” Stevens said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post. In her view, criticism from the far left of her party has moved beyond objections to Israeli government policy.

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I believe that anti-Zionism is a hate movement that has taken over in America and throughout parts of the West.

“I think that Israel is more than just a punching bag for some of the challenges that America is facing,” she said. Stevens described what she sees as an intensifying fixation on one small Middle Eastern country and argued that domestic American frustrations are being projected onto Israel.

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I think that Israel is more than just a punching bag for some of the challenges that America is facing.

Stevens, who calls herself a “traditional and classical liberal Democrat,” has long supported the US-Israel relationship. She said that position brought a personal and professional cost. “I was demonized for that,” she said, recalling that she was booed off a convention stage and chased out of a labor event in Detroit.

She also described “heightened bullying” and said she had faced threats and nearly been physically attacked. “I was on the verge of being attacked physically, and I’ve certainly been threatened. But I’m not a victim, I’m not a hero. I’m a public servant. I put up my hand to exercise my freedoms. I’m proud to do so. I’m proud to still stand.” Stevens said the conduct of what she called the anti-Israel “mob” threatened American civil society. “We can’t say to people, ‘If you disagree, you get to break down civil society.’ You can’t say that. We don’t want that.”

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I was demonized for that. I was booed off my convention stage. I was chased out of a labor event in Detroit.

She presented Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary as a small-scale version of the national debate over the party’s future. Stevens faced Abdul El-Sayed, a candidate of Egyptian origin whose approach to Israel she described as “poisonous.”

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I was on the verge of being attacked physically, and I’ve certainly been threatened. But I’m not a victim, I’m not a hero. I’m a public servant. I put up my hand to exercise my freedoms. I’m proud to do so. I’m proud to still stand.