| Sharpening differences as the parties evolve to new configurations. |
The Democratic Party’s platform drafting committee tussled over whether to use the word "occupation" in addressing the Israeli-Paleostinian issue, reflecting divisions between the Bernie Sanders
...The only openly Socialist member of the U.S. Senate. Sanders was Representative-for-Life from Vermont until moving to the Senate for the rest of his life in 2006, assuming the seat vacated by Jim Jeffords...
and
Hillary Clinton... sometimes described as the Smartest Woman in the World and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as
Another Jeremiah S. Black...
camps that could play out at the convention.
The Democratic National Committee held two days of open hearings this week in Washington, D.C., on the platform, inviting experts to testify. The hearings, which will also take place in other cities, got underway the same week that it became clear that Clinton had secured her position as the party’s presumptive presidential nominee.
Much of the back and forth Thursday afternoon, when the committee considered foreign policy, was about whether the committee should describe Israel’s presence in the West Bank as an "occupation."
The drafting committee’s platform will be presented to the full committee during the convention in late July in Philadelphia. Party officials are eager not to repeat the scene in 2012, when the full platform committee, under fire by pro-Israel groups for not including Jerusalem in the original draft, voted to add recognition of the city as Israel’s capital. The motion passed, but there was loud booing during the session.
Robert Wexler, a former Florida congressman who appeared before the committee as an expert witness representing Clinton’s views, in his interview after testifying said that while the platform could be tweaked, Clinton’s views ‐ which he said included not prejudging the outcome by referencing an "occupation" ‐ would prevail because she is the nominee.
"There was a winner of the Democratic primaries and her name is Hillary Clinton, and Hillary Clinton has a decades-long policy regarding Israel," he said.
Wexler in his testimony also said that the platform should reject bids to delegitimate Israel, including through the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.