Senior staffers in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration sought to reassure Jewish community leaders of the governor’s support for Israel during a private Zoom meeting on Wednesday.
The meeting came amid a public firestorm surrounding comments Newsom made during an interview the previous day, in which he suggested that Israel was on a road to becoming “sort of an apartheid state” because of threats to annex the West Bank. Newsom also said the U.S. should reconsider future military support for the country.
“It breaks my heart, because the current leadership in Israel is walking us down that path,” Newsom told progressive podcasters Jon Favreau and Tommy Vietor of Crooked Media during an event in Los Angeles to promote his new memoir. Favreau asked, “Do you think, looking down the road, that the United States should consider, maybe, rethinking our military support for Israel?”
“I don’t think you have a choice but that consideration,” Newsom said.
On Wednesday, a handful of Jewish community leaders, including the CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area; the executive director of Jewish California, a nonpartisan lobbying group; and the CEO of the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, met with “some of the most senior people in the administration,” according to one attendee. The Zoom meeting lasted about half an hour.
Describing the conversation as “constructive,” David Bocarsly of Jewish California said the group asked for a definitive public statement from the governor that he “continues to support Israel and the U.S.-Israel relationship,” including funding for Israel’s defense, and that he “doesn’t believe that a thriving, pluralistic and democratic society, as it is in its current state, is an apartheid state.”
The governor’s declarations were “concerning to many folks in our community. The headlines that ran the day after were alarming,” Bocarsly said. “We are hopeful that he will respond to our request to clarify his comments.”
Notwithstanding Newsom’s prior critiques of Netanyahu, the comments this week worried top Jewish community leaders across the state and drew sharp criticism outside it.
“He might be more liberal, but I never thought he would actually go that way and would describe our strong special ally” in those terms, Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, a staunch supporter of Israel, said, adding that Newsom was repeating a talking point used by “the fringe of my party.”
“Calling Israel an ‘apartheid’ state is not neutral commentary,” wrote Rabbi Reuven Taff, rabbi emeritus of Mosaic Law Congregation in Sacramento, in an op-ed in the Jewish Journal. “It’s a weapon that isolates Israel and encourages attacks on Jews.”
In using the word “apartheid,” Newsom was referencing a Feb. 17 opinion piece by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times that described threats by the Israeli right to annex the West Bank, which would “make today’s Israel permanently indistinguishable from apartheid South Africa.”
Newsom sought to clarify his remarks during another interview Thursday, after his initial comments received coverage in news outlets across the country, including the New York Times. “I was specifically referring to a Tom Friedman column last week, where Tom used that word, apartheid, as it relates to the direction Bibi is going, particularly on the annexation of the West Bank,” Newsom said. “I’m very angry with what he is doing.”
The controversy surrounding the posts reflected deeper concerns among American Jews about whether a decades-old consensus of support for Israel in Congress is under threat — and, if so, how quickly it will unravel. Democrats in particular have become increasingly comfortable sharing harsh critiques of the Jewish state in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war, as public polling shows surging support for Palestinians compared with Israelis, a trend most pronounced among young Democrats. Rep. Ro Khanna, a prominent national Democrat representing Silicon Valley, has referred to the Israel-Hamas war as a genocide, a claim that most Israel supporters strongly reject.
The claim that Israel practices apartheid — the now-outlawed system of enforced racial segregation in South Africa that denied Black people equal voting rights — is one that supporters of the country also stridently reject, pointing to protections for the freedom of religion, non-Jewish representation in Israel’s Knesset and the presence of non-Jews in positions of high authority in the country, among other factors.
Some anti-Zionist groups quickly lauded Newsom’s remarks.
“Gov. Newsom’s remarks echo what nearly all human rights organizations around the world have long concluded: Israel is implementing a broader system of apartheid against Palestinians,” Hussam Ayloush, CEO of the California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in a statement. “His statements reflect a growing and undeniable shift away from unconditional support for the Israeli government.”
Newsom has long been considered a political ally of the Jewish community and Israel. Last year he signed into law a controversial bill meant to tamp down antisemitism in K-12 schools, one loudly opposed by anti-Israel activists. In 2008, Newsom became the first sitting mayor of San Francisco to visit Israel. After the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks, he briefly visited the country again to meet with the families of survivors.
Tye Gregory, CEO of the JCRC Bay Area, called Newsom’s comments “confusing” and said “our community doesn’t know what to think.”
“A podcast is not a forum to state what your policy views are,” Gregory said. “We need to hear directly from the governor.”
The Jewish leaders who requested the meeting with senior staffers wanted “to ensure that his views hadn’t changed from his previous support” for Israel, Gregory said. He called the meeting “encouraging” and said the staff members “reiterated the governor’s support for Israel.” He then added, “It’s not me he has to convince. It’s the Jewish community statewide.”
Bocarsly pointed to new challenges facing the governor as he seeks to move from state politics to federal office, as is widely believed. Voters will be looking for clear-cut foreign policy positions, something not demanded of a governor.
“He hasn’t had a foreign affairs lens, and therefore has been able to demonstrate — in all the ways a governor can — his commitment to Israel,” Bocarsly said. “He’s entering a national spotlight, where policy differences become more concrete. And he’s having to figure out how to navigate that.”
