Democrats including Cori Bush, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Barbara Lee, demanding a ceasefire after a vote in the House of Representatives, 8 November 2023.
Democrats including Cori Bush, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Barbara Lee, demanding a ceasefire after a vote in the House of Representatives, 8 November 2023.
Photo: Graeme Sloan/Sipa USA/Alamy

In the dying days of Joe Biden’s presidency, Jack Lew, the US ambassador to Israel, expressed concern about the changing views of his country’s politicians. ‘You can’t ignore the impact of this war on future policymakers,’ he said. ‘Not the people making the decisions today, but the people who are 25, 35, 45 today and who will be the leaders for the next 30 years, 40 years.’1 Lew thinks this generational shift among Democrats is dangerous. I find myself hoping it’s real.

Recently I have been engaging in a thought experiment. What if the Democrats actually had a moral backbone with regard to foreign policy? What if they made Palestine the centre of a political and moral realignment? Could that help pull the party out of the morass of obsolescence that threatens it?

There is no single answer for why the Democrats lost the 2024 election, allowing Donald Trump – the man they’d spent months calling an authoritarian threat to democracy – to take both the presidency and the credit for the Gaza ceasefire announced days before. Among the many reasons were Joe Biden’s unpopularity and his cognitive decline (hidden by those closest to him), his failure to pull out sooner and the lack of any primary race to decide the next candidate. Those on the left of the party, like Bernie Sanders, have made a compelling argument that the Democrats failed to acknowledge the economic pain of most Americans, leading the working class to abandon a party that had abandoned them.

Another undeniable fact remains: that Joe Biden’s administration presided over and directly funded a genocide that was live-streamed before the world’s eyes on social media. Watching as the former president and his spokespeople reiterated their ‘commitment’ to a ceasefire at press conferences, while sending missiles and billions of dollars out the back door to Israel, was offensive to our intelligence. To employ an oft-misused phrase, it felt like gaslighting. Biden continued resolutely until the last moment, informing Congress of an additional $8 billion arms deal to Israel in the final days of his administration.2

‘I’m the guy that did more for the Palestinian community than anybody,’ Biden said last July, as though he hadn’t cast doubt on the Palestinian death toll, abandoned Palestinian-Americans to die in Gaza, or provided Israel with $12.5 billion in direct military aid since 7 October 2023.3,4,5 His unrelenting position left him and the Democrats deeply out of touch with their own base. Four months into the conflict, a majority of voters of every political affiliation supported a permanent ceasefire and de-escalation of violence in Gaza – which Biden only seemed bothered to strive for once he was cementing his legacy following the Democrats’ defeat, and after a further 30,000 people had been killed.6 Among Democrat voters, support for a ceasefire and de-escalation was even higher.

What were we, the viewers, to make of this unabashed hypocrisy? What exactly were we being asked to vote for? Even Lew, Biden’s ambassador, acknowledged that the president’s unwavering support for Israel ‘made his challenge for re-election insurmountable’.1

Even Lew, Biden’s ambassador, acknowledged that the president’s unwavering support for Israel ‘made his challenge for re-election insurmountable’

The alternative was Kamala Harris, who during the campaign said she ‘couldn’t think of anything’ she would have done differently over the last four years. The Uncommitted National Movement encouraged hundreds of thousands of voters to select ‘uncommitted’ on their primary ballots across several states in an effort to pressure Harris to take a vocal stand for a ceasefire and arms embargo. But Harris’s campaign refused to allow a Palestinian-American from the group to speak for a mere two minutes at the Democratic Convention and declined to meet with families in Michigan who had lost loved ones in Gaza. Ultimately, she failed to distance herself from Biden’s murderous policies. The Democrats, with a few notable exceptions, fell in line.7

This unchecked support for Israel’s war has consequences far beyond harm to domestic voters. Aside from the moral and political stain of complicity in a genocide, Biden’s actions have diminished the US’s position in international public opinion. As Omer Bartov, an Israeli historian of the Holocaust, recently said: ‘The impunity that Israel has received from the US… is destroying the entire edifice of international law that was put into place after World War Two.’

What kind of choice, then, was really being offered to Palestinian Americans and their allies in the last election? As Ussama Makdisi, a Palestinian-American historian said on his podcast during the election: ‘No people have ever been asked to vote for the people who are actually actively committing genocide against them.’ To which Makdisi’s guest, the British journalist turned US broadcaster Mehdi Hasan, responded: ‘The other guy is more genocidal.’

Recent estimates suggest that 65,000 died in Gaza on Biden’s watch, but early indications do suggest Trump could be ‘more genocidal’.8 After hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on 4 February, Trump announced that the US would ‘take over the Gaza Strip’ and create a ‘Riviera of the Middle East’. He argued that Palestinians should be forcibly removed to other Arab countries to make way for developers.

It remains to be seen whether this frightening vision of heightened ethnic cleansing could be realized, but it’s a stark reminder of what’s at stake. Prior to his inauguration it appeared Trump had put pressure on Netanyahu to agree a ceasefire – pressure that had been lacking under Biden.9 But rather than the bid for a Nobel Peace Prize that many – perhaps too optimistically – presumed was his game here, it seems increasingly likely that Netanyahu only agreed because of pledges from Trump behind the scenes to support ‘more genocidal’ policies. And this could apply not only to Gaza, but to the West Bank too, where Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed 171 children since 7 October 2023.10

On the domestic front Trump has vowed to ‘to set [the pro-Palestine] movement back 25 or 30 years’ by taking an aggressive stance against student demonstrators and protest camps.11 Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and long-time Middle East adviser, has suggested an openness to further Israeli annexation, saying that ‘Gaza’s waterfront property could be very valuable’.12 Trump has described himself as ‘more loyal [to Israel] than any other president’, but his isolationist stance has some Israelis worried that he will be less forthcoming than Biden.13 Others, like far right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, see the president’s second term as an opportunity for Israel to annex more land in the occupied West Bank.14

The numbers show that Trump won not with the huge mandate he claims, but by a slim margin created by Democratic voters staying home.15 In the run-up to the election political commentators downplayed the importance of Gaza to voters, claiming it wouldn’t make a difference to the final tally. They were wrong. In fact, a recent survey found that ‘ending the war in Gaza’ was the top reason that voters who cast ballots for Biden in 2020 chose to stay home in 2024, ranking above economic concerns.16

Data shows a profound generational shift, with younger Americans more likely to sympathize with the plight of the Palestinians and increasingly skeptical of continued US aid to Israel.17 A growing number of Black people in the US reported feeling a ‘connection’ to the Palestinians as the war dragged on, with a vast majority supporting a ceasefire.18 Faced with footage of a highly-equipped IDF soldier holding a US-supplied weapon, an increasing number of Americans relate less to our so-called ‘ally’, and more to the Palestinian civilian being terrorized. The Democrats need to reckon with this change. If they don’t, they will fail again.

Much has been said about the diverse coalition the Democrats need to build in order to win again, and I’ve seen it firsthand in the streets of the Bay Area where I live. The pro-Palestine protests of 2024 in the Bay brought together demonstrators from an array of social movements, not only Jewish and Palestinian, but Arab-American, Asian-American, Black, Puerto Rican and Native American alongside LGBTQI+, migrant and trade union groups. The young walked alongside the old, school children and college students. In San Francisco, I saw Armenian, Iranian and Uyghur groups turn out. This expression of transformative solidarity stayed with me. It looked like the kind of future we need.

Foreign policy alone doesn’t win elections, but it can be the moral heart of a new progressive agenda. This is a time for clarity, not further concessions. A reorientation towards Palestine could be part of a radical realignment within the Democratic party that also incorporates popular economic proposals, a commitment to reinstating reproductive rights, support for labour protections and a plan to combat climate change.

It’s unrealistic to imagine such a shift coming from the party’s elites, captured as they are by consultants and lobbyists oriented to an anodyne ‘middle’. But I’ve seen grassroots examples of it locally, where groups like Bay Area Divest, Bay Area Labor For Palestine and other organizations successfully campaigned for California’s Alameda County, Richmond City Council and Hayward City Council to divest from Israel – becoming the first cities in the country to do so.19,20 The Democrats would be wise to learn from these mobilizations.

Palestine isn’t for the US Democrats to save: Palestinians have always forged their own liberation, and will continue to do so. But the party is on the precipice and without a radical change in direction, will find itself consigned to the wrong side of history.

Decca Muldowney is a writer living in the San Francisco bay area in the US. Born and raised in London, she previously researched and taught Palestinian literature at the University of Cambridge.

  1. David Horowitz, ‘The ambassador’s farewell warning…’, Times of Israel, 12 January 2025, a.nin.tl/1Y
  2. Barak Ravid, ‘Scoop: Biden notifies Congress…’, Axios, 3 January 2025, a.nin.tl/BidenArms
  3. ‘Biden says he has “no confidence”…’, Reuters, 26 October 2023, a.nin.tl/DeathCount
  4. Erum Salam, ‘Palestinian Americans trapped…’, The Guardian, 20 Demember 2024, a.nin.tl/SueBiden
  5. Jonathan Masters and Will Merrow, U.S. Aid to Israel…’, Council on Foreign Relations, 13 November 2024, a.nin.tl/FourCharts
  6. ‘Voters Support the U.S. Calling for Permanent Ceasefire…’, Data for Progress, 27 February 2024, a.nin.tl/Voters
  7. Andrew Solender, ‘Tlaib, AOC face internal blowback…’, Axios, 31 May 2024, a.nin.tl/GazaDems
  8. Zeina Jamaluddine et al, ‘Traumatic injury mortality…’, The Lancet, 9 January 2025, a.nin.tl/Lancet
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  10. Emma Graham-Harrison et al, ‘“Total oppression”…’, The Guardian, 19 November 2024, a.nin.tl/WestBank
  11. Robert Tait, ‘Trump tells donors…’, The Guardian, 27 May 2024, a.nin.tl/TrumpCrush
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  13. ‘Read the Full Transcripts…’, Time, 30 April 2024, a.nin.tl/TrumpTime
  14. Freddie Clayton, ‘Israeli minister draws criticism…’, NBC News, 12 November 2024, a.nin.tl/Smotrich
  15. Michael Schaffer, ’Trump Won Less Than 50 Percent…’, Politico, 22 November 2024, a.nin.tl/50percent
  16. ‘New Poll Shows Gaza Was A Top Issue…’, Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project, January 2025, a.nin.tl/Polling
  17. Laura Silver, ‘Younger Americans stand out…’, Pew Research, a.nin.tl/YoungAmericans
  18. Christopher Shell, ’Most Black Americans Want a More Active U.S. Role…’, Carnegie Endowment for Peace, 25 April 2024, a.nin.tl/BlackAmericans
  19. Lacy Green, ‘Alameda County divests…’, The Oaklandside, 12 December 2024, a.nin.tl/Caterpillar
  20. Anser Hassan, 'Richmond becomes 2nd US city to divest…’, ABC7 News, 2 May 2024, a.nin.tl/Richmond