Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) was awakened last Thursday morning by an announcement made through his Jerusalem hotel’s intercom system, alerting guests to an incoming ballistic missile attack by the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen.

“I explained to my wife, and I said, ‘Well, this is the kind of reality of Israel, where they have these things,’” Fetterman told reporters in Jerusalem hours later.

It’s that reality that Fetterman thinks many in his party don’t understand.

“Politics, I describe it sometimes, is the business of backing away from something, and I’ve been very disappointed that my party, some of them have chosen to do that, back away from supporting Israel. I’ve always refused to pander to other factions. Why? I can’t explain. They have their own reasons. But for me, throughout all of it, I think it’s very important to lean in, not back away, or to equivocate or just say, ‘Well, what about this or those things?’ It’s really clear.” 

“Some people may have described that as moral clarity, whatever that is,” Fetterman continued. “But the more that’s happened, especially after 10/7, has only strengthened a commitment to make sure Israel and the Jewish community, both here and in my nation, deserves to have at least one very, very committed voice, and in my party, and I was going to be that one.”

Fetterman was eager to talk about the trip, quickly taking out his phone to show a photo that he had taken during a visit to the northern Israeli Druze town of Majdal Shams, where in July, 12 children and teenagers were killed by a Hezbollah rocket attack on a soccer field.

“This was the pole that shrapnel penetrated — a steel pole, both sides,” Fetterman said, holding up his phone to show the photo. “Can you imagine what that did to the little bodies of those children? That’s the reality. That’s the reality. That shrapnel penetrated a steel pole through both sides. Can you imagine? And those children were the same age as mine. … I met some of the parents. They were children that were just playing on that field. … And that’s what those cowards did. They just fired rockets, and children [were] playing soccer. That’s the truth, and that’s what I would want anyone that’s not going to stand with Israel [to see].”

Fetterman, who also visited an Iron Dome battery last week, was frustrated by Democrats who had voted against additional funding for the missile-defense system. “I call out every member of my Congress that ever voted against that, and that’s disgusting,” he said. “Explain how you would vote against that.”

But more broadly, Fetterman was disappointed by what he views as his party’s “pandering” to extreme voices. “I’d like to point out [that] my party tried to pander, or try to run in between the rain drops … like in Michigan. Michigan was a critical state for the election, and they pandered, and we lost Michigan. And now Dearborn, the largest percentage of Arab Americans, and they delivered Dearborn to [President Donald] Trump. And I’m like, ‘Hey, well, you’re probably not going to enjoy that.’” 

He called out Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) in particular, who “refused to endorse or campaign for [former Vice President Kamala] Harris, and now they’re yelling about how terrible Trump is, and you helped elect him, and your base and your home city delivered to Trump, and now that’s kind of that’s emblematic of where our party was.”

Fetterman was similarly dismayed by the support of some Senate Democrats for Mahmoud Khalil, the former Columbia University graduate student whom the Trump administration is attempting to deport over his anti-Israel activity, describing the New York school as “kind of ground zero of that monoculture run amok [where the administration] allowed antisemitism to take to take over.”

Shortly after Khalil’s detainment, the X account of Senate Judiciary Democrats posted a photo of the activist with the caption, “Free Mahmoud Khalil.”

“If you’re going to be committed and pick a side, even within my caucus in the Senate, if you are going to tweet and use your bandwidth to stand for that individual, I’m like, ‘Why aren’t you standing for the hostages?’ Fetterman, whose Washington office is plastered with posters of the remaining hostages in Gaza, added, “There are human beings that are still in tunnels right now, as we’re talking right now, that have been there for over 500 days. So like, that’s where my bandwidth is going.” 

“I can’t force and I’m not lecturing my colleagues,” Fetterman added, “but I’m saying, ‘Hey, you can pick that, but I reject it, and I’m actually going to be talking about this. And now Israel was forced back to start … war back in Gaza … because Hamas doesn’t want peace. They don’t want peace because they all understand that what they have left is keeping those poor people in tunnels. And that’s outrageous, it’s outrageous. It’s not Israel starting this because they love what’s happening. It’s like, let these people come back home.”

Despite his criticism of his party, Fetterman told JI he has no intention of leaving it, reflecting on the recent vote to avoid a government shutdown. Fetterman voted with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and eight other Democrats to pass a GOP-backed bill to keep the government funded.

“I was really the first Democrat to refuse to shut our government down, and my party was so desperate to pander to shut the government down. Absurd, absolutely absurd. Six months ago, we were lecturing the Republicans, ‘You can’t shut the government down.’ Now it’s, ‘Well, yeah, let’s do these things.’” 

Had a shutdown occurred, “all of it would be just spiraling right now, and [Congress] would still get paid, but all the other people aren’t going to get paid or get their money back. … It’s like that’s part of the problem, to pander, and they want to pander to the extreme parts of our party, to shut the government down. I said I will never burn the village down and claim that I’m saving it.”

Fetterman said he backed the Trump administration’s recent strikes on Houthi targets. “I fully support pounding that in and pulverizing what’s left of that organization,” he said, adding that he would also back the U.S. partnering with Israel to take out Iranian nuclear facilities. “I think Israel has the capabilities and the resolve, but whatever tools from us [could be used], I would fully support that.”

Fetterman’s trip to Israel last week was organized by Relief Resources, a U.S.-based nonprofit that facilitates mental health support in Jewish communities. The Pennsylvania Democrat was hospitalized with clinical depression for six weeks following his election, less than a year after experiencing a stroke during the campaign. In addition to traveling to the north, he met with senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who gifted Fetterman a silver-plated beeper similar to the one given to President Donald Trump earlier this year.

Shortly after an Israeli operation last year that detonated hundreds of beepers and walkie-talkies that had been distributed to Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon, killing 32 and injuring thousands, Fetterman praised the attack, saying, “If anything, I love it.”

Fetterman presented his own gift to Netanyahu — a photograph of the prime minister from the 1986 dedication ceremony of a memorial to Netanyahu’s brother, Yoni, who was killed in Operation Entebbe a decade prior while attempting to rescue Israelis whose plane had been redirected to Uganda. The photograph and accompanying article, which Fetterman had framed, appeared in the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent and was kept in the archives of Philadelphia’s Gratz College.

At 6-feet-8 and wearing his signature shorts and sweatshirt, Fetterman was hard to miss as he walked the streets of Jerusalem. But he thinks any attention he’s gotten in Israel is undeserved, pushing back on a question from one Israeli journalist who said Israelis view the senator as a “big hero.”

“No, no, I push back on that, or the word courage,” Fetterman said, “You know, being a senator, that’s not courageous for me. I’m just doing a job, and it’s like, these are my values. This is what I happen to believe. Courage is raising eight children after your husband was taken, defending Israel in the face of forces like Hezbollah or from Hamas. That’s courage. Or choppering in and rescuing injured soldiers, or children that are able to play on the same sacred space that those children were murdered from that rocket. So to me, that’s courage.”