(JTA) – Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s minority leader, told an Israeli-American group that it must strive to preserve bipartisan support for Israel. “If we don’t have bipartisan support for Israel, if Israel becomes the domain of one party or another, Israel will lose,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday, April 17, at a luncheon at the Library of Congress organized by the Israeli American Council to mark Israel’s 70th birthday. Pro-Israel groups are grappling with diminishing support among Democrats for Israel. Younger liberals are increasingly sympathetic toward the Palestinians, and Democrats perceive that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others in his government disdain the left. “The U.S.-Israel relationship is – and must always be – rooted in bipartisanship,” Israeli American Council Chairman Adam Milstein said at the luncheon, which drew 60 lawmakers, including congressional leaders like Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the majority leader in the Senate and Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

A principal funder of the council is Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate who is a major benefactor of Republicans. Adelson has said he sees the council as a more hawkish alternative to AIPAC, which he believes is too moderate in its pro-Israel advocacy. Unlike AIPAC, which remains the pro-Israel powerhouse in Washington, D.C., and whose hallmark is bipartisanship, the Israeli American Council will back legislation even if it has only Republican backing. The council was an early backer of the Taylor Force Act, which slashes funding to the Palestinians as long as Palestinian authorities continue payments to the families of Palestinians jailed or killed for attacks on Israelis. AIPAC cultivated Democratic support for the bill, which required some carve-outs for humanitarian assistance, before openly backing it. The measure passed recently.

Schumer also said that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel poses an acute threat. “We have to fight BDS with every bit of strength in our bones,” he said. “In my judgment, it is a modern version of antisemitism. Not just anti-Israel, antisemitism.”