Senior Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen is entitled to criticize Israel. He is entitled to support Palestinian rights, oppose settlement expansion and advocate for a two-state solution. Many committed supporters of Israel share some or all of those views. Serious democracies encourage moral debate, especially during war.
But Van Hollen’s recent guest essay in The New York Times is not a balanced attempt to grapple with a tragic and extraordinarily complex conflict. It is a one-sided indictment that assigns overwhelming moral blame to Israel while minimizing — and at times almost erasing — the forces on the other side that have repeatedly sabotaged peace and fueled violence for generations.
Van Hollen deploys the now familiar vocabulary of maximalist anti-Israel activism: “apartheid,” “ethnic cleansing,” “genocide,” “occupation,” and “collective punishment.” These are not neutral terms in this context. They are accusatory political labels designed to place Israel outside the boundaries of legitimate democratic conduct.
What is most striking is not simply the rhetoric, but the absence of moral proportion — and the near-total disappearance of Palestinian agency.
Van Hollen treats Palestinians almost exclusively as passive victims of Israeli power rather than as human beings with political leadership, moral choices and historical responsibility of their own. There is little acknowledgment that Palestinian leaders have repeatedly rejected compromise proposals, tolerated corruption, embraced incitement or empowered extremist movements that openly reject coexistence with Israel.
Hamas is presented largely as a lingering obstacle rather than what it actually is: a genocidal terrorist movement that glorifies massacre, embeds itself among civilians and openly seeks Israel’s destruction. Palestinians deserve dignity, freedom and national aspirations. But serious analysis cannot ignore the tragic reality that major Palestinian factions have too often chosen violence, rejectionism and martyrdom over institution-building and peaceful coexistence.
And where is Iran in this moral framework?
The regime arming Hamas and Hezbollah, funding regional terror networks and openly calling for Israel’s elimination receives almost no meaningful attention. That omission fundamentally distorts reality. Israel does not exist in a vacuum surrounded by reasonable actors seeking reconciliation.
Nor does Van Hollen seriously confront why many Israelis no longer trust sweeping territorial concessions. Israel withdrew entirely from Gaza in 2005. The result was not peace, but the rise of Hamas, years of rocket fire and eventually the horrors of Oct. 7. Israelis are not irrational for fearing that a failed Palestinian state in the West Bank could place the country’s population centers within range of forces committed to annihilation.
His attack on AIPAC is similarly revealing. AIPAC is portrayed as a malign force standing in the way of moral clarity. But advocating for a democratic ally under constant threat is not corruption. It reflects the views of millions of Americans who continue to believe that the U.S.-Israel relationship serves important moral and strategic interests.
The deeper problem with Van Hollen’s essay is that it reflects a growing temptation within parts of the Democratic Party: reducing one of the world’s most tragic conflicts into a simplistic morality play in which nearly all blame flows in one direction. That may satisfy activists. It does not produce wisdom. And it certainly does not produce peace.
