Responding to constituents at her regularly scheduled “office hours” last week, Massachusetts senator and celebrated left-wing icon Elizabeth Warren defended her vote to send $225 million of American taxpayer money to Israel for its Iron Dome missile defense system and explained her support of Israel in that country’s summer military campaign against Hamas in Gaza.

“I think the vote was right, and I’ll tell you why I think the vote was right,” she said. “America has a very special relationship with Israel. Israel lives in a very dangerous part of the world, and a part of the world where there aren’t many liberal democracies and democracies that are controlled by the rule of law. And we very much need an ally in that part of the world.”

Describing Warren’s event for the Cape Cod Times, reporter C. Ryan Barber noted that the senator said Hamas attacked Israel “indiscriminately” and that she believed civilian casualties from Israeli attacks are “the last thing Israel wants.”

Drawing applause, Barber reported, Warren said, “But when Hamas puts its rocket launchers next to hospitals, next to schools, they’re using their civilian population to protect their military assets. And I believe Israel has a right, at that point, to defend itself.”

Writing at The Intercept about the senator’s statements, Glenn Greenwald observed:

In her defense, Warren has long been clear that this is what she would do. Her Senate campaign website still contains statements such as “it is a moral imperative to support and defend Israel” and ”as a United States Senator, I will work to ensure Israel’s security and success.”

During her time in the national spotlight, Warren has focused overwhelmingly on domestic issues, rarely venturing into foreign policy discussions. Many of those domestic views, particularly her strident-for-D.C. opposition to banks, have been admirable, elevating her to hero status for many progressives.

But when Warren has spoken on national security, she has invariably spouted warmed-over, banal Democratic hawk tripe of the kind that she just recited about Israel and Gaza. During her Senate campaign, for instance, she issued wildly militaristic – and in some cases clearly false – statements about Iran and its nuclear program that would have been comfortable on the pages of The Weekly Standard.

Greenwald went on to note that British newspaper The Telegraph has published the names of all 504 children who were killed in Gaza “over the last 50 days.” Warren’s “clear position,” he continued, “is that Israel bears none of the blame for any of this. … That, ladies and gentlemen, is your inspiring left-wing icon of the Democratic Party.”

— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly