Now they can’t really repeat this ‘criticism’ without looking kinda silly.

From your perspective perhaps, but this is a severe, severe misunderstanding of liberal rhetoric if you think Zohran put himself in a better position. They can still point to the hours of time he spent in interviews defending his position and easily claim – and if we’re being charitable to Zohran, there’s truth to this – that Zohran is basically just lying to try to get out of being interrogated on this issue, but his underlying beliefs about opposition to Israel’s government are identical. Basically all he succeeded in doing is helping his right opposition paint him as perfidious while looking like a coward to his leftist supporters. I give it a week before rightists say that he’s doing “taqiyya” and, cartoon Islamophobia aside, the most hopeful position is literally that those people are right!