Mike Lowry
Israel and the New Democratic Party
On Dec. 7, 1941, Japan attacked United States forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, killing 2,403 people of which 2,335 were military personnel and 68 were civilians. As a result of that attack, the United States with a population of about 133.5 million people declared war on Japan.
On the morning of Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas forces in control of Gaza launched 2,200 rockets into neighboring Israel as militants using explosives and bulldozers breached fortifications on the Israeli border and other militants launched joint air, sea and land attack on Israel. Hamas ground forces were joined by those parachuting into Israel and being dropped off from boats on the coastline.
Key targets were 20 smaller Israeli communities and the attendees at the Outdoor Nava Concert at Re’im.
On Oct. 7, 2023, Israel’s population was just under 10 million people. The 1,200 deaths on a nation the size of Israel is comparable to an attack on the much greater populated United States resulting in over 44,000 dead!
As a result, Israel launched an assault on Gaza to destroy Hamas and also secure the release of the 251 hostages. As stories of the brutality of the Hamas attack that included cases of cold-blooded murder of captured victims, rapes, torture and even killing of babies and atrocities too extreme to be covered in this column, the sense of outrage was not unlike the outrage in Israel that America felt in days following Dec. 7, 1941.
Hamas, prior to the attack, had built underground tunnels under apartment complexes, schools, hospitals, mosques, and even under an amusement park. They also had purchased large supplies of food, water, medical equipment, and fuel that during the war they sold to Palestinian civilians at premium prices to fund their war on Israel and creating shortages.
The counterattack and battles that followed were intense with the innocent civilians, as in most wars, suffering t he most. I n all, a high estimate of 67,000 being killed in Gaza does not tell how many were Hamas and how many were civilians.
When the United Nations and others began to try to send in relief supplies, Hamas and other militants played havoc with those trying to help refugees. The UN reported that nine out of 10 trucks were robbed by Hamas or other armed groups.
Hamas released a video showing several of the hostages near starvation begging and crying for release and Hamas militants laughing in the background. Israeli forces did succeed in rescuing a few of the hostages but hostages that continued to be held by Hamas were sexually assaulted, beaten and tortured, and denied food and water. Many died as a result.
Meantime, on Oct. 8, 2023, Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon launched missiles and terrorist attacks on the northern part of Israel, creating a two-front war. In addition, the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen launched attacks on Israeli shipping.
In October 2025, President Trump was finally able to negotiate a ceasefire and release of the remaining Israel hostages and for a forceprotected humanitarian aid to allow greater amounts of refugee supplies to reach into Gaza with his 20-point peace plan.
However, around the world, anti-Israel and antisemitic attacks began to increase even greater than had occurred during the war. In 2022, in America alone, 3,698 incidents were reported and that number climbed to 3,698 in 2023. By 2024, 93,354 incidents were reported in the U.S.
In Europe and around the world, old antisemitic attitude seemed to be revived. Countries that had experienced the Nazi atrocities during World War II seemed to forget. In Amsterdam, the home of Anne Frank, a premeditated attack on visiting Israeli soccer players and fans resulted in hundreds brutally beaten, assaulted, and injured. The Dutch thugs even recorded the beatings of Dutch and other Jewish team supporters forced to jump into canals to avoid being attacked.
On May 21, a young Jewish couple who had recently announced their wedding engagement were shot and killed leaving a social event at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. The gunman had a history of calling for violence against Jews.
On June 4, 2025, at a peaceful event in Boulder, Colorado, calling for the release of the Israel hostages, a man showed up with a homemade flamethrower and Molotov cocktails and used them to set over a dozen individuals on fire including an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor. Many were injured and an 82-yearold woman died for burns.
Across America in recent years have been attacks on Jewish Synagogues and Jewish individuals as campuses across the country have been taken over by antisemitic students and faculty making them “no man’s land” for Jews.
The Democrat Party was long the home of Jewish voters, but they have found themselves unwelcome. The executive mansion of the Democrat governor of Pennsylvania was firebombed because he was Jewish.
The Democrat candidate for Maine Senate had a Nazi SS tattoo he tried to hide, claiming he did not know what it was but he had told others prior to his run what it was. Campaign supporters justify it as he got it a long time ago (like a long time ago it was OK?). Others said he got it when he was in the Marines (like Marines normally get Nazi tattoos?)
Perhaps, worst of all, some justify it saying “politics today is complicated.” Which recalls Democrats in the 1950s and 1960s justified supporting racist politicians from segregated states as their votes were needed for “political reasons.”
Would they be saying the same thing if he had a Ku Klux Klan tattoo? (Perhaps, they had no problem accepting Klan recruiter Robert Byrd who was a long-time supporter of racial segregation and long paying KKK member?).
To Byrd’s credit and credit of other leaders in the Democrat Party, it grew to support integration and civil rights.
Today, the Democrat Party of John F. Kennedy (“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”) has become a haven for extreme left-wing socialist candidates calling for an end to private property, taxing the rich to pay for free stuff, like free groceries, public housing, and public transportation.
Led by long-time Socialist Bernie Sanders — now a multi-millionaire with three large homes — is pushing for so-called Democrat Socialist candidates that include Adam Hanway, a supporter of the man behind the first 1993 World Trade Center bombings that resulted in six deaths — seven if you count the fact one was a pregnant female - and injured over 1,000 others Today. Hanway seeks the Democrat Congress position for the New Jersey 12th District.
Many of the Socialist Democrat office seekers are an embarrassment to more traditional Democrats and they disagree with the anti-Jewish pronouncements. One thing seems certain: the Democrat Party of today is far different then the party of John F. Kennedy. Thoughts for your consideration.
