When Joe Biden gave his state of the union address to the US Congress in early March 2024, Israel’s annihilation of Gaza, in response to the previous year’s October 7th atrocities carried out by Hamas, was almost six months in.
That night represented Biden’s last unqualified triumph as a public speaker. He had delivered a firm, combative message in front of a hostile Republican gathering. Afterwards, he lingered to receive the congratulations of Democratic Party members, among them Colorado Democrat Michael Bennet, who urged him to “keep pushing” for humanitarian aid for Gaza.
The moment was caught on a “hot mic” as Biden shared with Bennet, secretary of state Antony Blinken and transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg a recent exchange with Israel’s prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
“I told him, Bibi – and don’t repeat this – but you and I are going to have a ‘come to Jesus’ meeting.” That night seems like a relic from a vanished political era.
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But the Democratic Party continues to grapple with the staggering leniency the Biden administration extended to Netanyahu, and the Israeli government, throughout the concerted eradication of Gaza with a spiralling death toll in the tens of thousands.
Last week, 103 House Democrats tapped into a delayed crisis of conscience and voted in favour of a Bill authored by Republican congressman Thomas Massie that would eliminate $3.3 billion (€2.9 billion) in military and humanitarian aid to Israel.
The proposal was defeated by 314 votes to 104, but the breakdown made for curious reading. Massie, whose Bill reflected his deep antipathy towards foreign assistance in general, voted along with the 103 Democrats. All of Massie’s Republican colleagues voted against, along with 98 Democrats.
Among the Democrats who voted for the Bill was party grandee Nancy Pelosi. In 2019, Pelosi had told a gathering at the Israeli American Council conference that “if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain is our commitment to our aid, I don’t even call it aid – our co-operation – with Israel”.
Now, she explained her decision to side with what she described as the “unfortunate choice” put to the House by the Massie amendment.
“The United States must be a force for security and stability. The American people are rightly demanding an end to a perpetual cycle of war, and the Netanyahu government cannot maintain its current course. Therefore, while this amendment is ill-conceived, I vote yes for the message that it sends.”
According to the Israel Lobby Tracker, Pelosi received a “federal career total” of $188,554 in donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) and other groups. The 103 Democrats who voted to rebuke Israel received about $11 million in donations from Aipac.
Katherine Clark, the Massachusetts Democrat and House minority whip, received $1.4 million through multiple Aipac contributions and individual donations funnelled through that committee. She explained in a statement that she had voted yes “not because I agree with the entirety of the amendment, or the GOP’s cynical motivations for its consideration, but because I believe we must change course. While Democratic members will make different decisions on this amendment in good faith, we are absolutely united in our shared goal of permanent peace”.
Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader who received a total of almost $1.5 million from various Israel groups, issued a letter, obtained and published by Axios, to his congressional Democrats explaining why he was voting against Massie’s amendment. He said it was “overly broad in that it prohibits or would limit the use of funds for long-standing initiatives related to humanitarian aid, refugee resettlement” and peace-building operations.
Like Clark did, he stated that the Republican Party was attempting to weaponise the legislation for partisan purposes and that there were “more decisive ways to achieve the urgent change necessary when it comes to the far-right Netanyahu government”.
Asked by a reporter if he was out of step with the changing view within his party, Jeffries snapped: “Ask me a serious question and I’ll give you a serious answer.”
But it was a serious question and just one among many which Democratic leaders will be forced to answer when they interrogate themselves on their stance in relation to Netanyahu.
This week, the New Yorker published an in-depth report by David D Kirkpatrick that contained this damning paragraph on Biden’s attitude towards his two most senior foreign policy cabinet confidantes, Blinken and Jake Sullivan:
“Everyone who spoke to me insisted that Biden – whatever indications later emerged of his cognitive decline – played a vigorous role in Gaza policy. He bragged that his experience in the region extended back to the early 1970s, when he’d visited Israel as a senator, and he remained so confident in his expertise that he often patronised even his most senior advisers. Blinken, who was 61 on October 7th, had worked at Biden’s side for decades, in the Senate and in the Obama White House. His position at the state department put at his disposal the insights of the US foreign service, which included seasoned diplomats who, unlike the circle around Biden, had spent years living in the Middle East. Sullivan, who was 46 at the start of the conflict, was a former Rhodes Scholar and Supreme Court clerk who’d been at the centre of the Democratic foreign-policy establishment for more than a decade. Yet, White House officials told me, Biden sometimes brusquely dismissed the views of both men, raising his voice as though berating children. (Biden, through a spokesperson, declined to speak with me.)”
Among the prominent Democrats who have declined donations from Aipac are New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, California representative Ro Khanna, Maryland senator Chris van Hollen and Michigan representative Rashida Tlaib – who was the most outspoken critic of Israel’s barrage of attacks during Biden’s final year in office. While some of her party colleagues gave Israel’s prime minister a standing ovation when he addressed Congress in July 2024, Tlaib held aloft a sign reading “War Criminal”.
Since then, more Democrat politicians are falling into step with Tlaib’s view – as public disapproval of Israel’s attacks on Gaza increases within the US.
A poll commissioned by the Associated Press-Norc Centre for Public Affairs Research last week found that about a third of all Americans, and about half of those who identify as Democrats, believe Israel committed a genocide against Palestinians. Two in every 10 respondents declared it did not.
An April poll conducted by the Pew Research Center found that 60 per cent of US adults have an unfavourable view of Israel, and that 52 per cent have “little or no confidence in Netanyahu to do the right thing in world affairs”.
Three Democratic candidates in the New York congressional primary elections held in June – Brad Landers, Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez – all had trenchant criticisms of Israel’s devastation of Gaza as a central part of their manifestos. All three were backed by city mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has been a vocal in his call for Palestinian rights. All three candidates won.
Dan Goldman, the incumbent who lost to Landers in New York’s 10th district, countered that his opponent was using Aipac as a “dog whistle”.
“I have many issues with prime minister Netanyahu, but simply because I support the existence of Israel as a Jewish state, as the only Jewish state, does not, by any means, mean that I support everything that government does,” he said in an interview. “And in fact I do not and I’ve been very open about that.”
Last week’s vote points to both a definitive split within the Democratic Party over its stance on Israel and Gaza.
On Tuesday, Mamdani posted a direct-to-camera message in which he acknowledged that while he was powerless to deliver on his vow to have Israel’s leader arrested if, as expected, he attends the UN general assembly in September, “Binyamin Netanyahu is not welcome in New York City, nor is any other war criminal at large”.
Mamdani’s remarks were criticised by Jewish groups within New York, including the UJA philanthropic organisation, based in the city, whose spokesperson asked that he “stop his relentless and singular focus” on Israel and to “help bring the city together”.
Mamdani’s message has been viewed 65 million times. Since his lightning mayoral campaign, Mamdani has become the de-facto leader of the socialist left wing of the Democratic Party.
But even as the party begins to prepare for the November midterms, its leadership has never acknowledged the role that Israel and Gaza played in the outcome of the 2024 election. Many observers were stunned by the failure of the Democratic National Committee report, or “autopsy”, published in May on its chaotic 2024 presidential campaign to mention Israel or Gaza at all.
This despite a campaign year that was defined by sweeping protests across US college campuses and the fact that it was the prevalent issue among a critical mass of voters in Dearborn, outside Detroit, in the critical state of Michigan.
Kamala Harris’s reluctance, or failure, to place clear pronounced distance between her views on Israel and those of Biden’s led to an electoral rebellion among Arab-American voters in that community, who ultimately leaned towards Donald Trump in a protest vote. He won Michigan, one of the so-called “Blue Wall” states, by just 80,000 votes – which coincides with the number of registered voters in Dearborn.
Trump made an unscheduled visit to Dearborn just four days before the election and listened as a local restaurateur told him that “we look to a Trump presidency with hope envisaging a time where peace flourishes particularly in Lebanon and Palestine maintaining the integrity of our borders”.
The candidate waved at people and gave his fist-pump gesture. That Dearborn hope seems desperately misplaced now. Back in office, Trump proved as malleable as his predecessor in allowing Netanyahu to manipulate and charm him not only through the completion of the ruination of Gaza, but also into the latest disastrous imbroglio with Iran. In place of Blinken and Sullivan, the world got Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff.
Fresh crises in the Middle East occupy the embattled Trump administration this weekend.
But the Democrats still face an internal and public reckoning over their decision to regard Netanyahu as a good faith ally and a statesman even as Gaza – just as he had promised – was reduced to rubble.
