For the Democratic party, the war in Gaza has become the most divisive foreign policy issue since Vietnam. It has fractured traditional alliances and played a significant role in our party’s presidential loss in 2024.

Inside the party the argument is not just about policy. It’s about language — most notably whether to call Israel’s actions in Gaza “genocide.” In many progressive circles that word has become more than a description. It has become a test.

Pass it and you belong. Fail it and you are suspect.

I experienced this firsthand as a Democratic candidate for Congress participating in candidate forums in the bluest district in the country. I’ve seen the outrage this war evokes. I share most of it. But I’ve also seen conversations on how to end the violence devolve into arguments about a single word.

My politics run progressive. I support Medicare for All, believe we must radically change our tax code to make the wealthy pay their fair share, and that ICE is beyond redemption. I also believe that the fates of Israelis and Palestinians are inescapably bound together — that security for one cannot exist without justice for the other.

I am a fierce critic of Benjamin Netanyahu, whose leadership I believe is holding the future of his country — and the region — hostage to his personal political ends. At one candidate forum I called him the “worst Jewish leader since King Ahab.” Some Jewish friends patted me on the back. Others canceled fundraisers.

I am also the father of a son who spent the morning of Oct. 7, 2023, huddled in a bomb shelter in Jerusalem, where he was studying for the semester, while Hamas conducted its murderous attacks. The terror and destruction Israelis faced that day — and its lasting trauma — is impossible to grasp if you did not experience it yourself.

Defining the contours of a new American foreign policy towards Israel requires building bridges at home, not burning them unnecessarily. And the Democratic party cannot build a morally serious and durable foreign policy in the region when natural allies are ostracized over differences in terminology.

In the months following those attacks, while still fearing for friends and family in Israel, I shuddered at the horrors unfolding in Gaza: the indiscriminate destruction, the apparent indifference to civilian casualties, and the credible accusations that starvation was being used as a weapon of war.

And yet, I watched as the battle over what word Democrats called these actions became almost as consuming as the effort to stop them.

In progressive circles, conversations on the war seemed to begin or end based on whether you accepted the word “genocide” as the appropriate characterization. Those who resisted the term were viewed with suspicion, as if they were minimizing Palestinian suffering or offering cover for Israeli war crimes.

Personally, I do not believe calling it genocide is fair. As horrified as I am by some of the actions of the Israeli army — and as repellent as the rhetoric from zealots like Minister of National Security Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich often is — I do not believe the Israeli Defense Forces are acting with the intent, as is required for the genocide label under international law, “to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” Then again, I understand how people of good faith come to a different conclusion. But I’m not interested in arguing. I see their point. I just want them to see mine.

For many, using the word “genocide” reflects a desire to bring moral urgency to a situation they feel is being ignored. I get that. Yet in the mouths of some, I feel the word morph from an expression of moral outrage to a tool used to vilify and discredit the entire project of modern Israel. A way to level a charge not just against Netanyahu and his most lunatic allies — but to throw all Israelis, and all the Americans who support them, in with history’s worst of the worst.

Attitudes towards Israeli policy in the United States are changing rapidly. Even amongst Democratic supporters of Israel there is increasing consensus that if Israelis continue to elect right wing leaders who pursue the current course in Gaza, allow settler violence and the de facto annexation of the West Bank, the United States cannot — and should not — continue to offer unconditional support.

But defining the contours of a new American foreign policy towards Israel requires building bridges at home, not burning them unnecessarily. And the Democratic party cannot build a morally serious and durable foreign policy in the region when natural allies are ostracized over differences in terminology. The work of uniting Democrats around a vision of Middle East policy that promotes peace, security, and dignity for both Israelis and Palestinians is too important to derail over disputes about a single word.

Dr. David Oxman is a former candidate for the Democratic nomination for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 3rd District.

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