In an Uber to New York City from my suburban home one morning a few weeks ago, I read and reread bombshell reporting from The New York Times that was both familiar and shocking: yet another man in politics accused of sexual misconduct. Just a few weeks earlier it had been Eric Swalwell, a Democratic congressman and candidate for California governor. This time it was a novice politician and national sensation running for the U.S. Senate in Maine, Graham Platner.
That day I was slated for the 9 a.m. hour on “Morning Joe,” where I have regularly appeared for many years, often addressing gender issues. The more I read about the allegations against Platner — who had previously drawn scrutiny for having a Nazi-linked tattoo and was now being accused of sending sexually explicit texts to multiple women while he was married — the more concerned I became. I’m a Democrat but I feel strongly about calling out bad behavior regardless of party. Plus, if this guy was the Democrats’ best hope for flipping the Senate, the odds looked less promising by the minute. I said so on TV that morning.
Two days later, as more stories emerged — including a follow-up piece in the Times that alleged more troubling behavior by Platner toward women — I picked up my phone and recorded an Instagram reel. Platner should leave the Senate race, I said. Maine Gov. Janet Mills remained on the ballot, though she had suspended campaigning. The primary was still a few days away. Too much was at stake for Democrats to get behind someone with so many skeletons emerging from his closet. I uploaded my post and went to bed.
Nowhere in my video or in my “Morning Joe” appearance did I mention Platner’s views on Israel. And yet these are some of the sentiments that soon began flooding in:
“Are you a Zionist? If so, your opinion is null and void.”
“Eat shit zionist”
“Isreal pay for this?”
“Omg the Israeli propaganda is bonkers tonight. They think this is going to work. Nope.”
“Platner got the Zionist Fascist political elites shook! You can fuck all the way off!!”
“I’m going to guess you support Israel and don’t acknowledge a genocide?”
“I love how your redline wasn’t a literal genocide when it came to Kamala… However, Platner consensually sexting is.”
“Didn’t you support the lady that helped vaporize women and children in Palestine?”
“Zio operator.”
I am Jewish and proudly so. I display a Star of David on my Instagram account. I believe strongly in the right of Israel to exist and hope someday there will be peace through a two-state solution. I also believe Netanyahu has been a profoundly destructive force. In short, my views on Israel are very much in the mainstream of American Jewish opinion.
None of this had anything to do with my criticism of Platner. My concerns were about his character, his treatment of women and his questionable judgment. But apparently, because I am Jewish — and because Platner has criticized Israel, calling the Gaza war a genocide — then everything I say about him must have a secret agenda.
If that’s not antisemitism, I don’t know what is. But it’s not only antisemitism. It’s also profoundly counterproductive. This week, as even more disturbing allegations emerged about Platner — a woman he dated accused him of sexually assaulting her in 2021 — I couldn’t help wishing that progressives had spent more time worrying about the many previous red flags attached to his candidacy and less time questioning the motives of those who raised them.
Sadly, I’m not the only person who was smeared with antisemitic garbage in connection with this topic. The reporters who broke the Platner stories for the Times both happen to be Jewish, and some Platner defenders saw a secret agenda in their journalism. Posts proliferated noting that one of the reporters, Katie Glueck, had in 2009 been co-president of her college’s Students for Israel chapter, which received an award from AIPAC. “We need to talk about the author and sourcing on the New York Times attack on Graham Platner,” a contributor to the left-wing magazine Jacobin said in a video, describing Glueck’s parents as “Israeli settlers” who live in Haifa. Responding to a subsequent video I made, one poster wrote of the Times reporters: “One is Israeli who received awards from AIPAC. The other says her Jewish faith informs her reporting. These folks are shilling for Israel.”
Yes, Israel has become a bright-red dividing line among Democrats. Yes, it’s an important issue right now in American politics. But if this means Jews in the public square cannot be credible on any subject, then that is disturbing, to say the least. It’s a trope that smacks of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which claimed that Jews orchestrate shadowy networks of power. Today, this perverse logic would disqualify the vast majority of American Jews from ever weighing in on politics at all.
AIPAC, unfortunately, has not been helpful in this regard. The right-leaning group has spent massive sums in various races this cycle, including against Platner — as is their prerogative. The problem is that for years now, AIPAC has sought to sway voters toward pro-Israel candidates by funding ads on unrelated issues. This is fundamentally misleading (and backfired spectacularly in one New Jersey race, where it ran ads criticizing the stock trades of a pro-Israel-but-too-moderate-for-AIPAC Democrat, only to watch him lose to a candidate who was much further to the left). I, for one, wish AIPAC would back off. If we don’t want people to assume that Jews have an ulterior motive when weighing in on unrelated matters, it would really help if America’s main pro-Israel lobby would stop doing exactly that.
Still, none of this makes the sentiments expressed about me and the Times reporters acceptable. Americans of all backgrounds should be able to report and make arguments about politics without having our motives baselessly questioned — and Jews are no exception. Let’s hope that going forward two things become abundantly clear: Graham Platner was a disastrous Senate candidate. And despite what some on the left may think, not everything is about Israel.
Lauren Leader is the founder and CEO of All In Together, a nonpartisan women’s civic education and mobilization organization.