Rep. Ellison, D-Minn., is a leading contender for the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee, despite a record of tough criticism of Israel that pro-Israel insiders say would easily have disqualified him a decade ago.

A supporter of the two-state solution and a frequent visitor to Israel, he also voted against additional funding for Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system in 2014. In 2009, Ellison spear-headed a letter from 54 Democrats to Presdient Obama urging him to press Israel to ease its blockade of the Gaza Strip.

That he is being seriously considered now — and with the backing of the party’s foremost pro-Israel stalwart, incoming Senate minority leader Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. — is a signal of how far the party is willing to go in challenging the most influential pro-Israel groups, a relationship that not so long ago was hard to disentangle.

“It sends the wrong symbol for someone with those views to take a leadership role in the Democratic Party, especially since the party has been struggling with Israel,” said Abraham Foxman, the retired national director of the Anti-Defamation League, giving voice to what many establishment pro-Israel figures are saying without attribution. “Israel has always been a bipartisan issue; this makes it less of one.”

Steven M. Cohen, a professor of Jewish social policy at Hebrew Union College — Jewish Institute of Religion, said Ellison’s ascent is emblematic of a party seeking to attract younger voters likelier to identify with the Palestinians than with Israel, or at least to see the conflict from both sides. Furthermore, the Democrats are not turning away from Israel, he said, but are more willing to entertain positions identified with the pro-Israel left, as opposed to the major groups and the current Israeli government.

“One can imagine that young Democrats would have no problem with Ellison as chairing their party,” Cohen said. “The pressure is on the pro-Israel community to broaden the definition of pro-Israel to include people who oppose settlement expansion and who favor a far more inclusive approach that takes into account Palestinian nationalism.”

An operative who straddles the Jewish and Democratic worlds said the relative nonchalance greeting Ellison — the hawkish Zionist Organization of America was among the few groups to issue a statement vehemently opposed to his leadership — should not come as a shock to the pro-Israel community after eight years of tensions with President Barack Obama.

During that time, the pro-Israel mainstream more often than not stood by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his disputes with Obama. These came to a head last year during the rancorous debate over the..read more at JTA