Pelosi Must Press Connie Chan on Anti-Israel Stance

Retiring congresswoman Nancy Pelosi has endorsed Connie Chan to succeed her in San Francisco  – even as Chan makes a sharp break with Pelosi’s own approach to Israel. Chan advanced from the June primary behind state Senator Scott Wiener; Pelosi is campaigning for her in the November runoff, not installing her. The endorsement, the fundraising, and the loan of campaign staff have gone ahead nonetheless.

The obvious question is still unanswered: Why does she support Chan despite this deep divide?

Chan is not a newcomer to the voters most directly affected. She is the District 1 supervisor  – San Francisco’s equivalent of a city council member – for the Inner, Central, and Outer Richmond, along with Lone Mountain, Sea Cliff, and Presidio Terrace. The Richmond is a historic center of the city’s more observant Jewish life. Chan already arguably represents those constituents. Her call for a total arms embargo, and her refusal to fund Iron Dome, are positions she is asking her voters to send to Congress.

At a University of California Washington Program event in mid-September, Pelosi answered a question about the Middle East by recalling her upbringing. Her father, she said, had been a “champion for Israel.”

“That’s how we were raised about loving Israel, loving Israel, establishing a state of Israel, loving Israel, loving Israel, loving Israel,” Pelosi said, gushing.

She called Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack “horrible;” She then returned to her central formulation: “We love Israel. We love Israel. We love Israel, but we want some balance in all of this.”

She described the Democratic caucus as “very prayerful, very thoughtful about supporting Israel,” with leadership “sort of in the middle.” Speaking about Israel, she also said that the people you love most can disappoint you most.

Disappointment is not repudiation. At that appearance, Pelosi did not describe Israel’s actions as genocide. In July she voted for a failed amendment to strip the full $3.3 billion aid package, calling it an “unfortunate choice” she would support “for the message that it sends,” and she later described that vote as a departure from her previous support. She still closed on love of Israel and “some balance,” not an embargo.

Although an endorsement does not require agreement on every issue, this is not a minor disagreement. Chan has made her position a central reason to elect her.

Chan’s platform identifies “the genocide of the Palestinian people” as a primary foreign-policy focus. She has committed to a total arms embargo, to co-sponsoring the Block the Bombs Act, and to rejecting money from AIPAC and other pro-Israel political action committees.

Iron Dome is the sharpest single contrast. For many Jewish voters it is not another standard munition. It is a system whose purpose is intercepting rockets aimed at civilians, and Pelosi has long treated its funding as bipartisan and defensive. In a televised debate in early October, Chan said she would not fund it. She presented a full arms embargo as a day-one priority: a vote to “end a genocide in Gaza and to end an apartheid state.”

This is not an issue she mentions only when pressed. It is a core part of how she defines her candidacy.

Put the two politicians’ statements side by side, and the difference is stark.

Pelosi may have reasons for endorsing Chan that outweigh this disagreement. But the endorsement does not explain those reasons.

For San Francisco Jewish voters, that silence has a local history. Pelosi’s relationship with the Bay Area Jewish community is long and personal: decades of ties to the Jewish Community Relations Council, Holocaust commemorations, and two Jewish grandchildren. Jewish leaders praised that record when she announced her retirement.

Jewish Insider reported in August that Bay Area Jewish leaders asked Pelosi to address Chan’s Israel rhetoric – and that Chan did not respond. [ Jewish Insider reported in August that Bay Area Jewish leaders asked Pelosi to address Chan’s Israel rhetoric ] Tyler Gregory, CEO of the Bay Area Jewish Community Relations Council, said he hoped Pelosi would “educate [Chan] about where the line is between criticizing the Israeli government and amplifying antisemitic tropes.” Tali Klima of Bay Area Jewish Coalition-Action called on Pelosi to “publicly reject Chan’s antisemitic rhetoric.”

By then, Pelosi’s endorsement video was already months old, and fundraisers and the loan of her communications director to Chan had already followed the May endorsement. The silence after those specific requests is what remains unexplained.

The endorsement is clear. What is not is whether Pelosi, before November, accepts Chan’s embargo and her refusal to fund Iron Dome – or whether her endorsement is meant to survive those positions unanswered.