Israeli leaders in recent weeks announced new settlements in the West Bank and said that the military would proceed with an all-out assault against Gaza City. These mark the latest escalations in a nearly two-year war that has become increasingly toxic among Americans, particularly younger and more Democratic-leaning voters.
In one of the most notable signs of this shift, in late July, a majority of the Senate Democratic caucus voted in favor of a resolution introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., that would have limited arms sales to Israel. “This is the highest number of senators that have voted to cut off arms to Israel. I’d say it’s long overdue,” Matt Duss, a former adviser to Sanders and currently executive vice president of the Center for International Policy, told Salon. “It’s a reflection of how horrible this war is. The starvation and the cruelty of this war is becoming completely undeniable. That said, it’s still deeply frustrating that we couldn’t get this passed, or even get the entire Democratic caucus to vote for it.”
The vote came amid a wider debate over the Democratic Party’s approach to Israel, and whether recent actions represent a genuine shift in policy thinking, as opposed to a temporary, tactical adjustment to current circumstances.
Since the October 7 attacks, the Democratic Party establishment has largely stood by Israel as it carried out a brutal assault on Gaza. Administration officials and members of Congress offered occasional, tepid criticism of Israel’s handling of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, but it was couched in support for Israel’s right to self-defense, reserved harsh words for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition rather than Israel in general, and placed exclusive blame for both the war’s outbreak and the inability to broker a ceasefire to end it on Hamas. In the early days of the conflict, the White House explicitly criticized progressives who called for a ceasefire, and then continued to provide arms unabated, vetoed ceasefire resolutions and the United Nations, and denounced decisions by international tribunals to charge Israel.
Despite this strong backing from the Biden administration, the Israeli government all-but-openly campaigned for Donald Trump, who, in turn, has given Netanyahu carte blanche to escalate military operations in Gaza and across the Middle East, opening the door for Democrats to criticize Israel, and in particular the current Israeli government, more than they had during the Biden years.
“If you take that vote [on the Sanders resolutions] and then you look at what has been an arc of change and evolution on how a lot of members of Congress are talking about Gaza. There’s been a real shift there,” said Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. “The question is, does that reflect a genuine shift in policy sensibility and a readiness to really go out on a limb for a principled position? Or does that more reflect a sense of finger in the air and test the winds?”
Friedman says that her reading of many statements from members of Congress repeat the Biden-era formulation of reiterating support for Israel and framing the war strategy as bad for Israeli interests while expressing what she calls “cosmetic” statements of concern for Gazans. Even among those who voted to pause weapons shipments, the accompanying statements suggest that their votes are intended as symbolic opposition to the current humanitarian situation and not necessarily to Israel’s larger bombardment of Gaza.
There are a few discrete factors that may be shaping some of these changes, and these recent expressions of support for limiting arms to Israel emerged amid temporary conditions that could be influencing elected officials’ positions as much as ideology or core belief. Netanyahu has cultivated a close relationship with the Republican Party and President Donald Trump in particular, alienating Democrats and making it easier for elected officials in the party to create rhetorical distance between themselves and the Netanyahu government. The prime minister’s standing among Democrats in D.C. is not helped by his tumultuous relationship with former President Barack Obama. A Gallup poll in July found only 9% of Democrats had a favorable view of the Israeli prime minister.
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The vote on the Sanders resolution also took place at an especially visceral moment of Israel’s assault on Gaza, with images of starving children going viral and the international media reporting on a looming famine.
The real question, analysts say, is what will happen once Netanyahu is replaced or the kinetic phase of the war concludes – whether Democrats will seize the opportunity to return to their previous stances – such as turning a blind eye to settlement construction or providing unconditional military assistance – once conditions are “back to normal.”
“There could be a regression to the mean in the short-term if Netanyahu is ousted. Because I think Netanyahu is a walking permission structure for Democrats to criticize Israel,” Andrew Miller, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who focuses on national security and the Middle East, told Salon. If that does happen, Miller said, it could give more establishment Democrats with a more traditional conception of the U.S.-Israel relationship an opening to soften their recent stances, whoever the next prime minister might be. But Miller, who served as the deputy assistant secretary for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs in the Biden State Department — before resigning in June 2024 —thinks that any such retreat from recent criticism will not be long-lived
“I think there is going to be a short-term fluctuation in the trend that ultimately corrects itself and resumes the path it was on while Netanyahu is in power,” he said. “I don’t think that any change in leadership in Israel is going to influence the views and perspectives of the base of the Democratic Party and the grassroots.”
Another view is that the recent shift is clear, but more temporary, driven by a necessary aversion to the Netanyahu government and its conduct during the war, but one that need not augur a complete break.
“Some of it will be permanent, and some of it will go away when the war in Gaza ends,” said Ilan Goldenberg, chief of policy at J Street, a non-profit that describes itself as “pro-Israel and “pro-peace.” “My hope is that you don’t end up with instinctive, very strong opposition to the U.S.-Israel relationship, through the entire Democratic Party.”
“In the same way that we wouldn’t want countries walking away from the United States because of Donald Trump, we can’t walk away from Israel solely because of Bibi Netanyahu, but we can choose to walk away from him and this particular government, and some of the atrocious things they’re doing,” Goldenberg said.
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Even as the relationship between Israeli leadership and the Democrats begins to show cracks and the level of civilian suffering becomes undeniable, party leadership is still far from breaking with Israel, instead trying to strike a balance between criticizing Israel and embracing it. A number of senators met with Netanyahu during his July visit to D.C., and roughly 20 Democratic members traveled to Israel during their summer recess.
These kinds of tensions are already playing out on the campaign trail. After the Senate vote on cutting off arms supplies, former Secretary of Transportation and rumored 2028 candidate Pete Buttigieg found himself in hot water after giving a notably vague response about the conflict and how he would have voted on the Sanders resolution. Following an intense backlash on social media, he walked the comments back, saying he would have supported the effort, signaling that positioning on this issue could play a meaningful role in 2028.
During the 2024 campaign, Harris maintained that she was working towards a ceasefire, but was hesitant to distance herself from her boss and, like him, refused to voice support for the concrete steps – notably agreeing to cut off arms sales – that would have hastened her professed desired outcome. The extent to which her position on the conflict cost her the election is difficult to quantify, but it certainly cost her important votes in Michigan and took up oxygen during her campaign. The former vice president was often interrupted by protesters during campaign events and the uncommitted movement, a progressive protest campaign aimed at achieving a ceasefire, ultimately decided not to endorse her.
Goldenberg, who served as director for Jewish Outreach and Policy Advisor for the Kamala Harris presidential campaign, said he doesn’t see the war in Gaza as the deciding issue in 2024 but that there was “certainly a negative hangover feeling amongst parts of the Democratic base that goes back to this issue.”
“I think Democrats are going to want to avoid that feeling in ‘26 and ‘28,” he adds.
The upcoming elections will not only be a test of Democratic messaging but also their ability to protect members who will be targets for pro-Israel groups like AIPAC. In 2024, two Democratic incumbents who had among the earliest to call for a ceasefire in Gaza – Jamaal Bowman in New York and Cori Bush in Missouri – were defeated by primary challengers who were funded by AIPAC. The campaign ads against Bowman and Bush did not center the question of Palestine or Israel’s war, but instead focused on things like the members’ loyalty to Biden’s domestic policy agenda.
“[AIPAC] already knows it’s not a winning political issue for them, because they don’t advertise on it.” said Duss. “Supporters of these members have to make clear and sound the alarm on what’s really going on here. That the attacks on these members are being driven by conservative forces that don’t share values with most Democrats and who are often funneling pro-Trump money to knock out progressive Democratic champions.”
How Democrats navigate these questions may determine whether the party sets the terms of debate on Israel, or cedes the fight to its opponents. “As long as the Democratic Party is unable, as a party, to make space in its policy spectrum for positions that are more critical of Israel and more concerned with the rights and safety and future of Palestinians, they are basically handing this issue to the right as a sharp-edged weapon,” Friedman says.
Some on the left believe that unconditional support for Israel will incur the same political cost as backing the Iraq War did in 2008. The clearest emerging litmus test is opposition to sending offensive weapons, but other issues could loom large in Democratic primaries, including recognizing a Palestinian state and allowing international investigations of Israeli war crimes. Another could be whether or not Democratic candidates are willing to recognize Israel’s war as a genocide, something on which the party’s constituents increasingly agree.
Rep. Katherine Clark, the House Minority Whip, recently became the highest-ranking Democratic member to use the term, calling on attendees at a recent event to “take action in time to make a difference … whether that is stopping the starvation and genocide and destruction of Gaza,” or other issues that are important to them. She quickly retracted it.
