Damian Dovarganes/AP Photo
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) speaks alongside Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) during a debate for candidates in the U.S. Senate race to succeed the late Dianne Feinstein, January 22, 2024, in Los Angeles.
LOS ANGELES – Outside the Bovard Auditorium on the campus of the University of Southern California, a crowd of close to 100 gathered to chant “Cease-Fire Now.” Inside the auditorium, four candidates for U.S. Senate in California, who could play a role in moving official policy on Israel-Palestine, offered one of their sharpest points of contrast when talking about the war in the first debate of the campaign, just weeks before ballots are mailed to voters.
There were plenty of issues discussed Monday night, from the economy and health care to housing and homelessness. The big headline was probably the only Republican on stage, former Dodger and Padres baseball great Steve Garvey, failing to answer whether he would support Donald Trump in November, despite having voted for him in 2016 and 2020. Garvey, who said he disagrees with the Republican senators whom he is trying to caucus with on “just about everything,” responded to numerous questions from the moderators and the other candidates by deflecting that he would make a personal choice later.
“Once a Dodger, always a Dodger,” as Rep. Katie Porter quipped.
Garvey trying to play it down the middle could make it hard for him to consolidate the Republican vote and get into the top two in the all-candidate March 5 primary. Functionally speaking, the presence or absence of Garvey on the ballot in the general election is what could turn it from a coronation to a contest, and is the main newsworthy information coming out of this debate.
But the responses on Gaza from the leading candidates—Reps. Porter, Adam Schiff, and Barbara Lee—are in my view more instructive in this moment than their views on other topics. First of all, it’s the main public-affairs issue facing the country right now. Second, the way politicians react amid a developing and unexpected crisis can inform how they would govern across a range of policies. I talked to all three after the debate ended, trying to gather some answers about the war and the U.S. role in it.
THE CONTOURS OF THE VIEWS OF THESE CANDIDATES are familiar, though all three have insisted that they ultimately support a two-state solution in the region. On one end of the spectrum, Lee called for a permanent cease-fire a day after the October 7 attacks. In the debate, she stated that the current death toll of 25,000 Palestinians is “counterproductive to Israel’s security.” On the other end, Schiff said that countries must be able to defend themselves, while acknowledging Palestinian civilian casualties and saying that the U.S. should work to reduce them (though not exactly how). “We can’t leave Hamas governing Gaza,” Schiff said. “I don’t know how you can ask any nation to cease fire when their people are still being held by a terrorist organization.”
Porter has tried to position herself between those two poles, saying that the U.S. needed to be “pushing the conditions that will get us to a bilateral, durable peace.” Her plan, which she calls a cease-fire but which requires new leadership in Gaza, a release of all hostages, resources for rebuilding the physical and social infrastructure in the destroyed areas, guarantees for Israeli security, and negotiations for a Palestinian state, has been seen as too conditioned for some peace activists. In Porter’s view, the U.S. can encourage this outcome but not dictate it.
“The parties to this conflict are Israel and Hamas,” Porter said. “The word ‘cease-fire’ is not a magic word, you can’t say it and make it so. But we have to push as the U.S., as a world leader, for us to get to a cease-fire and to avoid another forever war.”
Many have found it hard to distinguish between Porter and Schiff’s positions; the CEO of the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Community Relations Council recently said “the difference is largely semantics.” After the debate, in the “spin room,” I asked Porter to make the differences clearer.
“I think a cease-fire is in the best interest of everyone,” she replied. “And I have been willing to be detailed about what I think needs to happen,” which included all the conditions put forth before. “So I think what you’ve seen from me … not saying ‘I stand with Israel’ and that’s the end of the discussion. I stand with Israel’s right to defend itself. I also want, believe that the people of Palestine deserve a free state.” She said that Schiff didn’t offer a plan to get to that end state.
The responses on Gaza from the leading candidates—Reps. Katie Porter, Adam Schiff, and Barbara Lee—are instructive in this moment.
The problem is that the current leadership of Israel also offers no plan in that direction. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has consistently rejected a two-state solution and vowed to do so as long as he was in power. “My insistence is what has prevented—over the years—the establishment of a Palestinian state that would have constituted an existential danger to Israel,” Netanyahu said most recently.
How can you have faith in the political leadership of Israel to carry out this plan, I asked Porter. “I think the United States, particularly Secretary Blinken and Secretary Austin, have been absolutely correct to push Israel’s leadership to change course in this conflict,” she said. “I am very concerned about what Prime Minister Netanyahu has said. I think his repudiation of a two-state solution should be of grave concern to every American.”
I asked Schiff the same question, citing the protesters out in front of the auditorium. Last week, Schiff denounced Netanyahu’s rejection of a two-state solution. How could he support what the Netanyahu government is doing in Gaza at the same time?
“I think the U.S. should help Israel defend itself from terrorists,” Schiff said. “I think the relationship we have between the U.S. and Israel is an important one. It is a state-to-state relationship that needs to transcend who the prime minister is at any given moment.”
Rebecca Traister of New York magazine chimed in at that point. “There are lots of people, including people outside, who say these are war crimes … should there be limits on how a state defends itself?”
“Of course there are limits on how a state defends itself,” Schiff responded. “States need to abide by the international laws of war.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders offered a resolution to that effect just last week. It would have required the State Department to conduct a study as to whether U.S. funding for the war in Gaza was being used in concert with the international laws of war. I asked Schiff, “Would you have supported that resolution?”
“No,” he said.
I put the same question to Porter. Would she have supported that resolution? She conceded that she hadn’t read the full text. “But I have a long-standing position on this … when the United States funds our allies, we should expect that all applicable laws, both U.S. and international, including the Leahy Law, are followed … As someone who cares a lot about oversight, I think it’s important to hold ourselves to that oversight standard for every country that we fund.”
(I’ve posted to X the full discussions with Schiff and Porter.)
I wasn’t able to talk to Lee in the bustle of the spin room as much as I’d hoped, but she was forceful about how the war is raising the possibility for escalation. “You see a regional war that’s developing. Now the U.S. is involved [referring to the strikes on Houthi forces in Yemen] and hasn’t come back to Congress yet. And so this is very dangerous. And I’m going to keep speaking out and trying to make sure that this administration course corrects.”
I then asked Lee what I asked Schiff and Porter, about the Sanders resolution over whether funding for Israel complied with international human rights laws. She was not familiar with the resolution and asked me to follow up with an aide. Walking away, Lee said, “You know where I stand.”
UPDATE: On Tuesday, Rep. Lee submitted this comment: “I have long been concerned about oversight over US arms transfers and compliance with US law and basic human rights standards. I have been leading on this issue; as Chair of SFOPS (the Appropriations subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs) in the 117th Congress, we added new language to the FY23 annual SFOPS appropriations bill to tighten up how the State Department handles these transfers. I support the review in the Sanders’ resolution.”
Lee did mention Netanyahu’s rejection of the two-state solution during the debate. “Those who don’t believe in a two-state solution don’t believe in peace and security for Israel, nor for Palestine,” she said.
THIS IS A PRETTY GOOD ENCAPSULATION of who these candidates are and how they would act in the Senate. Lee was rhetorically powerful and ready to adopt a position that she believes in, even a lonely one. But her not knowing about the Sanders resolution, the first and (thus far) only effort inside Congress that goes beyond expressing sympathy and lockstep support for Israel, seems a little disengaged with the work necessary to put her forceful ideas into action. The charitable interpetation is that spin rooms are chaotic, and to Lee's credit she delivered a clear answer after the fact, once she was able to consider the matter.
Porter’s entire profile is to supply the plans necessary to get from point A to point B. And she has adopted that approach here. I admire politicians who are willing to shift their viewpoint in conjunction with situations on the ground. But I don’t know how convinced I am as to whether this is a shift. So many conditions are put in front of ending the killing that the commitment can be questioned. And while it is undoubtedly correct that Israel and Hamas are the parties to the war, that soft-sells the U.S. role as Israel’s biggest ally and military benefactor, with a decided voice in how the country conducts itself. The fear is that the plan can be correct—and much of it is—without a path to it being adopted.
Schiff is wedded to the U.S.-Israeli relationship, and while he isn’t blind to the facts on the ground, they aren’t going to change his views. He understands at a certain level that wars must be conducted under international law, but he’s unwilling to look into whether Israel, and more important U.S. funding and equipment, conforms to those laws. There is lip service expressing sympathy with the mass tragedy, while being disinclined to do much about it beyond token pressure.
California voters will have to decide which approach they prefer.
