California Democrats Drop Support for Israel from Their 2010, 2012 Platforms

Just days after the national Democratic convention fell into chaos over removals of God and Jerusalem as Israel’s capital from the platform, with many convention delegates caught on tape booing the reinsertion of both into the platform, the Tatler has learned that the California Democratic Party dropped support for Israel from its own platform. Gwilym McGrew first noticed the change in the CA Democratic Party’s platform language.

Here is the California platform language regarding Israel for 2004. It is on page 26 of the platform:

“Peace in the Middle East. Champion human rights and democracy for all people as the pillars of our policy in the Middle East. Maintain our commitment to ensuring the security and well being of the State of Israel and to maintaining America’s special relationship with Israel. Support the Palestinian goals of peace, justice, security and a viable independent state, which includes aid for economic development. Promote efforts to root out terrorism without endangering civilians. Encourage direct negotiations for peace that build on the “Road Map” as proposed by the “Quartet” (United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations).”

Here is the 2012 platform for the California Democratic Party, which does not mention Israel in its foreign policy bullet points on page 21. The fourth bullet point simply says the California Democrats hope to:

Proactively seek a durable peace treaty in the Middle East

The California Democratic Party, one of the most progressive state-level Democratic parties in the nation, adopted its platform during its convention in February 2012. Israel is not mentioned anywhere in the 2012 California Democratic Party’s platform, at all. Israel was also not mentioned in the California Democrats’ 2010 platform, indicating that dropping Israel support has been a longstanding project of California Democratic Party activists.

California Democratic Party chairman John Burton caused controversy at last week’s Democratic National Convention when he compared GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.