For many of us critical of U.S. policy on the conflict between Israel and Palestine, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) has become the conscience of Congress.
Few people on Capitol Hill would have expected this role for Maryland’s senior senator. Van Hollen, a Senate Foreign Relations Committee member, had always reliably supported Israel. Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack left him angry and outraged.
That attack, Van Hollen was quoted as saying, “will forever leave a scar on the peoples of Israel and the United States.” He called the assault “the worst attack on the Jewish community since the Holocaust.”
But since Israel’s draconian military retaliation began against Palestinians, Van Hollen has become the leading Senate voice against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war-on-Gaza conduct and its astonishing civilian toll. He similarly opposes U.S. offensive military support for Israel.
The weapons issue, Van Hollen told me in an interview, is “a matter of humanity.” American taxpayers and weaponry are fueling “much of the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and ongoing violent settlement expansion on the West Bank.”
Americans should, he maintains, “apply our principles of freedom, self-determination, human rights and rule of law in a consistent way” and “apply those principles to our foes [and] friends.” If instead we apply double standards, we are “simply using those principles as a matter of political convenience.”
I see his clear and powerful denunciation of Netanyahu’s war as a profile in political courage. (Full disclosure: Van Hollen served for years with my brother Paul in the Maryland state legislature before joining Congress in 2002.) Unlike some Democratic senators who criticize the war and are Jewish, Van Hollen has no natural protective cover from whispered, spurious antisemitism charges.
Based on his stand, Van Hollen recently experienced public and private sniping from Jewish community members in his state who have defended or excused Netanyahu’s policies.
Earlier this month, a highly visible public dispute boiled over at a “Lox and Legislators” breakfast meeting hosted by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington with Maryland lawmakers. There, CEO Ron Halber attacked Van Hollen, who had not been invited, and had in fact been dis-invited the previous year.
Van Hollen “has dramatically lost his way,” Halber told reporters after the breakfast. “His social media is filled with a lack of empathy for Jewish suffering [and] … for Israel’s strategic position. It’s almost like he cannot wait for the next opportunity to jump down Israel’s throat.”
The “overwhelming majority of the Jewish community,” he added, “feels betrayed by the senator.”
In response, a Van Hollen spokesperson replied, “Ron Halber has become an apologist for the Netanyahu government, whereas Van Hollen remains “committed to a values-based foreign policy that holds our friends and our adversaries to the same standards.”
Jewish Insider editors and groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Anti-Defamation League certainly disagree. They rarely condemn the Israeli government or Israeli military for mass Gaza casualties, West Bank terrorism against Palestinians or military atrocities captured on video. Instead, they seek to divert public attention. Their framing of this dispute as a personal assault on Halber — initiated by Van Hollen — was predictable.
“Labeling American Jews as apologists when they challenge you is not discourse,” announced William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. “It is a smear.”
But Van Hollen’s forthright stance has also won Jewish favor. Within 48 hours of the incident, more than 500 constituents signed and circulated a letter demonstrating Jewish community support, calling Van Hollen’s stand “courageous. … He has been and continues to be on solid ground in his criticism.”
Van Hollen was grateful. “To see members of the Maryland Jewish community rallying behind me, especially students and younger people, the next generation of Jewish leaders,” he told me, has been “very heartening.”
Polls show that an increasing number of Jews, particularly progressives and young people, oppose Netanyahu’s policies and support Palestinian rights. So do most Americans overall.
That enormously frustrates many U.S. Netanyahu allies. Groups like AIPAC and the ADL now seem to equate any criticism of Israeli government policies and IDF actions with supporting Hamas terrorism. They’ve driven the blindered part of the Jewish community into a tribalism that rejects any Jewish State criticism, surpassing even the cynically ginned-up hysteria that conflates any support for Palestinian rights with antisemitism.
Unfortunately, many American political leaders lack Van Hollen’s courage. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) — a national figure with apparent presidential ambitions — displayed a carefully calibrated response at the same JCRC breakfast, stating that Maryland “stands with the Israeli people and we support their right to exist in the region with the same sense of safety and security that we all want.”
Pointedly, Moore steers clear of Netanyahu’s controversial policies, demonstrating how a “pragmatic” politician handles matters of principle.
But that is not Van Hollen’s way. Well-funded pro-Israel groups could complicate his life if they were to recruit primary opposition for the 2028 elections. If they do, Van Hollen tells me he will be ready for that challenge.
“This job’s not worth it,” as he puts it, “if you can’t look yourself in the mirror at the end of the day.”
Mark I. Pinsky is a Durham, N.C.-based journalist and author.
