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      Cracks open in Democratic support for Israel as old guard is challenged

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      With a giant Stars and Stripes and two gleaming cars at his back, Joe Biden turned to focus his remarks on one member of the audience. “From my heart, I pray that your grandmom and family are well,” he told Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress. “I promise you, I’m going to do everything to see that they are, on the West Bank. You’re a fighter.”It was a characteristic peace offering by the US president, even as protesters rallied outside the Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan, and Tlaib herself challenged Biden over his unyielding support for Israel. But Tuesday’s gesture, and even a Middle East ceasefire declared on Thursday, may not be enough to heal a growing rift in the Democratic party.Biden’s first hundred days as president were striking for their rare display of Democratic unity, pleasantly surprising the left with his ambitions for government spending, racial justice and the climate crisis. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a congresswoman from New York, said his administration “definitely exceeded expectations that progressives had”.Even when a crack appeared last month over Biden’s plan to retain former president Donald Trump’s cap on the number of refugees allowed into the US, the White House backed down within hours after fierce blowback from progressives and harmony was restored.But Israel’s bombing campaign against Hamas in the heavily populated Gaza Strip, which killed 65 children over 11 days, was of a different magnitude. It exposed a generational and political divide in the party that cannot be so easily bridged.On one side are Biden, 78, the Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, 78, House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, 81, and House majority leader, Steny Hoyer, 81, all of whom grew up in a political era when reflexive support for Israel was axiomatic. Hoyer said this week: “We must not allow extremists to hijack important discussions about securing a better future for Israelis and Palestinians by promoting a false narrative.”On the other side is “the Squad”, progressive members of Congress and people of colour who include Tlaib and Ocasio-Cortez (both called Israel an “apartheid state”), Ilhan Omar of Minnesota (who described Israeli airstrikes as “terrorism”) and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts (who tweeted “We can’t stand idly by when the United States government sends $3.8 billion of military aid to Israel that is used to demolish Palestinian homes, imprison Palestinian children and displace Palestinian families”).The generation gap reflects a broader trend among the US population. John Zogby, a pollster, notes considerably more sympathy for Palestinians among voters under 40 than those over 60. “Older folks are able to conjure up the original legend of David Ben-Gurion [Israel’s first prime minister] and the wars of 1967 and 1973,” he said. “Voters under 40 conjure up Benjamin Netanyahu [Israel’s current prime minister], the intifada and now several bombings in Gaza.”Youth is not the only force moving the Democratic party’s centre of gravity. On Thursday the leftwing senator Bernie Sanders, 79, introduced a resolution blocking a $735m weapons sale to Israel while his colleague Elizabeth Warren, 71, welcomed the ceasefire but urged Biden to press for a two-state agreement “that starts with taking all appropriate steps to end the occupation”.Several pro-Israel members of Congress also raised questions in recent days, a sign that, while backing for Israel’s right to self-defense remains rock solid, skepticism about its government’s treatment of the Palestinians is no longer taboo. The fact that “the Squad’s” scathing comments went unrebuked spoke volumes about how much has changed in a few short years.Logan Bayroff, a spokesperson for J Street, a liberal Jewish American lobby group, said: “There are shifts and you see it on the left side of the spectrum with vocal and unapologetic Palestinian rights advocacy from the likes of AOC [Ocasio-Cortez] and others but you also see it reflected across a large swath of the party.“What is notable is that we’re still not seeing that reflected in terms of policy or rhetoric from the Biden administration. I think this is less one half the party versus the other and it’s more Congress pushing in one direction and the administration not following as of yet.”Activists and analysts suggest that various push and pull factors are at work. Netanyahu’s ostentatious alliance with Trump, whom he praised for moving the US embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, makes him a singularly unsympathetic figure for Democrats. Netanyahu fiercely opposed Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, which Trump scrapped but Biden is seeking to revive.Bayroff added: “When you have an Israeli leader who has identified himself so closely with the ideology, rhetoric and tactics of rightwing ethnonationalism and has explicitly echoed Donald Trump and Trumpism – as well as aligning himself with other illiberal democracies and leaders like Orbán and Bolsonaro and Modi – that’s the antithesis of the pluralistic, diverse liberal democracy that most Democratic voters and an increasing number of Americans are supporting. So that is going to lead to a collision.”Meanwhile a new generation of Americans, including Jewish Americans, have grown up with a heightened consciousness of social justice movements. Sanders and others have compared the Palestinian struggle to Black Lives Matter and want to apply domestic principles to foreign policy.Bayroff added: “We’re seeing an overall push in all aspects of American politics and policy from a rising generation and a lot of voters to centre human rights, dignity and equality and equal treatment and social justice for all people. When they see a 54-year occupation and a system where Palestinians have a different set of rules and don’t get to vote for their own government and face a different legal system than their settler neighbours, that is something that people reject and want to see the US work to end.”But some Democrats who support racial justice causes are nevertheless uneasy with the comparison.Ron Klein, chair of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said: “We made it clear to our friends in Black Lives Matter and various civil rights organisations we’re on the same team. The Palestinian issues are a separate set of issues. Don’t conflate the two, they’re totally different, and that is not part of the formal Black Lives Matter movement.”Klein believes “the Squad’s” recent statements have gone too far. “I think that they’re wrong,” he continued. “They’re entitled to their opinion as elected members of Congress but they’re taking a lot of their information out of context. I’m not here to suggest that Israel always does the right things but Israel is a very strategic ally to the United States.”Still, the political and social upheaval of recent years has shaken many old certainties about crossing lines once perceived as uncrossable. Democrats who may have long harboured doubts about Israeli policy, but bit their lip because of assumed political risks, now feel at liberty to speak out.Peter Beinart, editor-at-large of Jewish Currents, tweeted: “The reason the American debate over Israel-Palestine could shift dramatically and quickly is that many Democratic politicians don’t need to be convinced that what Israel is doing is wrong. They just need to be convinced that they can say so without hurting their careers.”Biden, who has impressed many young liberals with his bold agenda, finally seems to have run into an issue where old, cautious habits die hard. However, with Democrats holding only narrow majorities in both the House and Senate, “the Squad” might be deterred from causing a serious split over a foreign policy issue when so much is at stake on the home front.Max Berger, editorial director of the liberal group More Perfect Union, said: “I think it’s very unlikely that this portends any kind of significant rupture in the Democratic coalition but it does open up a question: will the White House be as responsive to progressives on foreign policy as they have been on domestic policy? The honest answer is, we’ll see.” More

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      ‘A radical change’: America’s new generation of pro-Palestinian voices

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      It just so happened that Joe Biden was due to visit Detroit, home to the biggest Arab American community in the country, at the height of the latest upsurge in Israeli-Palestinian violence.The sight of the presidential motorcade on Tuesday passing through a protest bedecked with Palestinian flags – and of Biden himself in heated discussion with Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian woman to be elected to Congress, on the Detroit airport tarmac – vividly illustrated the rapid shifts under way in US politics.Welcoming Friday’s ceasefire, Biden said he would continue what he called his “quiet, relentless diplomacy”. But his emphasis through 11 days of bombs, rockets and bloodshed, on Israel’s right to self-defence, his refusal to demand a ceasefire or to join a UN security council statement to that effect, have exacted a political cost in the very constituency that was decisive in getting him elected.In many ways, Biden was following a well-trodden path for US presidents, but the political downside of doing so is much greater now than it would have been just a few years ago, before a new generation of Democrats such as Tlaib arrived in Congress, and before the Black Lives Matter campaign made common cause with the Palestinians.The same broad coalition that saved Biden’s primary campaign and helped get him across the line in November, could now become a powerful counterweight to the pro-Israeli traditions of the Democratic party.“We’re in a moment of profound flux in society in general and things are moving very, very quickly and sometimes it takes moments like these to see how far things have shifted,” said Abdul El-Sayed, an epidemiologist, formerly Detroit’s former health director and candidate for governor, who addressed the protesters in Michigan on Tuesday.“Joe Biden has, throughout his political history, been very, very good at reading the changes in temperature that occur, and I hope that he registers the fact that the base has also moved on this issue.”Also in the crowd on Tuesday was Reuben Telushkin, a Black Jewish activist who is national organiser for Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). He said the Black Lives Matter movement has reinforced an alliance between Palestinians and African Americans.“People were connecting in the streets, connecting online and so pre-existing solidarities were deepening, but also average, maybe more apathetic folks, were being politicised,” Telushkin said.He pointed to the impact of protests in Ferguson in 2014, when it was discovered the same US-made teargas canisters were being used on Black American demonstrators in Missouri and against Palestinians on the West Bank.“Palestinians were demonstrating their solidarity by sending tweets to the protesters in Ferguson about how to treat teargas,” Telushkin said. “So it was a really material link.”A new vocabulary has entered the US debate on Israel and Palestine, particularly since Human Rights Watch published a report last month that described the status quo as apartheid, a description that echoed on the floor of the House of Representatives and on MSNBC by presenter Ali Velshi.“That is a radical change. Normally you’d be at risk of losing your job if you spoke up for Palestinian human rights,” said Edward Ahmed Mitchell, the deputy executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.The models Bella and Gigi Hadid, whose father was born in Palestine, used their social media platforms, with a combined following of 108 million, to highlight the plight of the people of Gaza and the West Bank.“This political activism has been building for decades,” said Salih Booker, president of the Center for International Policy. “It’s hard to point to exactly what grain of sand has now been added to this side of the scales, but I think we’re approaching a new tipping point where the entire debate is being reframed.”Beth Miller, government affairs manager for JVP Action, the group’s political advocacy arm, said: “This idea that you could be ‘progressive except for Palestine’ is falling apart, and people understand that now there is no such thing as ‘progressive except for Palestine’.”US public sympathies are still mostly with the Israelis rather than the Palestinians. The ratio was 58% to 25% in a Gallup poll in March, but that still reflected a steady swing towards the Palestinians over recent years and the survey was taken before the most recent eruption of violence.Similarly the centre of gravity in the Democratic party is still sympathetic towards Biden’s approach, but the direction of change is away from the reflexive support for Israel that has been the president’s hallmark throughout his long political career.As a sign of things to come, progressives point to the ouster of the formerly powerful, pro-Israel chair of the House foreign affairs committee, Eliot Engel, by a political newcomer, Jamaal Bowman, in a Democratic primary last July. Bowman has since supported a bill that would regulate US military aid to Israel.“The conversation has to change before the policy can change,” Mitchell said. “And right now we are seeing a radical change in the conversation surrounding Palestine.” More

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      The Guardian view on the US and Israel: time for change | Editorial

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      One of the grimmest aspects of the conflict that has unfolded over recent days is its sheer familiarity, especially to those living through it. Even the youngest have faced this violence too many times before: the Norwegian Refugee Council reported that 11 of the children killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza over the past week were participating in its psychosocial programme to help them deal with trauma. In all, 228 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have died, at least 63 of them children, while 12 people in Israel, including two children, were killed by rockets fired by Palestinian militant groups. Both parties disregard the lives of civilians. But it is overwhelmingly Palestinian children who have died, lost parents or siblings, and whose homes, schools and health services have been hit. Late on Thursday, Israel announced a ceasefire after 11 days of violence, with Hamas confirming that the truce would begin overnight. It had become evident that both sides were looking for an exit, and Joe Biden had strengthened his language the day before, telling Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in a phone call that he “expected a significant de-escalation today on the path to a ceasefire”. This too is familiar: the US beginning by talking only of Israel’s right to defend itself, and blocking efforts to exert pressure at the UN, but talking tougher once a resolution looked more plausible (whether to use limited leverage wisely or, less generously, to look like it has influence).The administration is said to believe it is better to lobby in private than pronounce in public; while such formulations are often convenient, it does appear to have been pressing harder behind the scenes. The approach reflects the president’s style of business and the bitter experience of the Obama administration, for which Mr Netanyahu showed such contempt – eventually prompting the US to refuse to veto a landmark UN vote demanding a halt to settlements in the occupied territories. But Donald Trump’s unalloyed enthusiasm for Mr Netanyahu, and the gifts he handed over, weakened the Palestinians and emboldened the Israeli prime minister.Mr Trump’s successor has returned to the status quo ante in US relations with Israel. But something has changed: his party and parts of the public are shifting. An influx of progressive Democrats to Congress, and the energy of the Black Lives Matter movement, have brought renewed support for the Palestinian cause. Many in the American Jewish community, particularly in younger generations, are increasingly critical of Israel. This time, the conflict appears to have captured public attention.Mr Biden has plenty to preoccupy him at home and internationally. Essentially, he wants all this to go away. But this latest violence has shown that it will keep returning until the real problems are addressed. The injustice of occupation has been compounded as settlements change the facts on the ground to make a viable Palestinian state look ever less possible, while Israel denies its Palestinian citizens the same rights as Jews. The US may prefer not to think about all this for now. But in the long run, Israel may find that it cannot count on such a compliant partner. More

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      Biden restores $200m in US aid to Palestinians slashed by Trump

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      The US will restore more than $200m (£145m) in aid to Palestinians, reversing massive funding cuts under the Trump administration that left humanitarian groups scrambling to keep people from plunging into poverty.
      “[We] plan to restart US economic, development, and humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people,” the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said in a statement.
      The aid includes $75m in economic and development funds for the occupied West Bank and Gaza, which will provide food and clean water to Palestinians and help small businesses. A further $150m will be provided to the United Nations relief and works agency for Palestine refugees in the near east (UNRWA), a UN body that supports more than 5 million Palestinian refugees across the region.
      After Donald Trump’s row with the Palestinian leadership, President Joe Biden has sought to restart Washington’s flailing efforts to push for a two-state resolution for the Israel-Palestinian crisis, and restoring the aid is part of that. In his statement, Blinken said US foreign assistance “serves important US interests and values”.
      “The United States is committed to advancing prosperity, security, and freedom for both Israelis and Palestinians in tangible ways in the immediate term, which is important in its own right, but also as a means to advance towards a negotiated two-state solution,” he said.
      Palestinian leaders and the UN welcomed the resumption of aid. Israel, however, criticised the decision to restore funds to UNRWA, a body it has long claimed is a bloated, flawed group.
      “We believe that this UN agency for so-called refugees should not exist in its current format,” said Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan. Pro-Israel US lawmakers joined the country in opposition to the aid and said they would scrutinise it in Congress.
      From 2018, Trump gradually cut virtually all US money to Palestinian aid projects after the Palestinian leadership accused him of being biased towards Israel and refused to talk. The US president accused Palestinians of lacking “appreciation or respect”.
      The former president cancelled more than $200m in economic aid, including $25m earmarked for underfunded East Jerusalem hospitals that have suffered during the Covid-19 crisis. Trump’s cuts to UNRWA, which also serves Palestinian refugees in war-stricken Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, was described by the agency’s then head as “the biggest and most severe” funding crisis since the body was created in 1949. The US was previously UNRWA’s biggest donor.

      To outcry from aid workers, leaked emails suggested the move may have partly been a political tactic to weaken the Palestinian leadership. Those emails alleged that Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner had argued that “ending the assistance outright could strengthen his negotiating hand” to push Palestinians to accept their blueprint for an Israeli-Palestinian deal.
      The cuts were decried as catastrophic for Palestinians’ ability to provide basic healthcare, schooling and sanitation, including by prominent Israeli establishment figures.
      Last April, as the coronavirus pandemic hit, Trump’s government announced it would send money to Palestinians. The $5m one-off donation was roughly 1% of the amount Washington provided a year before Trump began slashing aid. More

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      Israeli zeal for second Trump term matched by Palestinian enmity

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      Anyone in any doubt about Benjamin Netanyahu’s preferred candidate in the US presidential election need only visit his personal Twitter account.Right at the top, behind the headshot of Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, is a banner photo of him with Donald Trump in the Oval Office, their eyes fixed on each other.“You have been the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House,” Netanyahu told his ally during a Washington visit this year. “Frankly, though we’ve had some great, outstanding friends in these halls, it’s not even close.”That list includes Barack Obama, whose famously icy relationship with Netanyahu extends by proxy to his vice-president and Trump’s 2020 rival, Joe Biden.Palestinians see the prospect of a second Trump term as disastrous. “If we are going to live another four years with President Trump, God help us, God help you and God help the whole world,” the Palestinian prime minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh, said this month.Trump has arguably been the US president with most impact on the Israeli-Palestinian issue as he has sought to appeal to his pro-Israel base, including evangelical Christians. During the past four years, the US leader has ticked off much on Netanyahu’s hardline nationalist wishlist that was previously considered taboo.He has cut hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, declared the divided city of Jerusalem Israel’s capital, shut down Palestinian diplomatic offices in Washington and devised a “peace plan” that affords Israel’s government the vast majority of its demands.Led by the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the Trump administration has also persuaded the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel despite the ongoing occupation. It has also imposed further sanctions on Iran, a policy Israel has been advocating against its arch-enemy for years.“For Netanyahu personally, obviously he has a preference,” said Yohanan Plesner, a former Israeli politician and president of the Israel Democracy Institute. “One of the assets that Mr Netanyahu sells to the Israeli public is his close intimate relationship with Mr Trump.”Four more years of Trump could be hugely advantageous for the Israeli leader, particularly if Washington can convince more Arab states to establish open ties with Israel with few or no concessions to the Palestinians.A further softening of Washington’s stance on illegal settlements in Palestinian territories, or even recognising annexation moves, could also be on the table. Trump’s US ambassador to Israel and former bankruptcy lawyer, David Friedman, is vocal in his support for Jewish settlements.Trump’s image and that of his country may have plummeted worldwide, but many Israelis adore him. According to a survey conducted for the i24News channel, 63% would prefer him to win the election, compared with less than 19% who would prefer Biden.Plesner, however, says that does not mean Israelis are overly concerned about a Biden presidency. “Mr Biden’s track record is well established. There is no cause for any worry among Israelis,” he said. “Both candidates are considered pro-Israel.”Biden was often used as an emissary to Israel during this vice-presidency and has previously described Netanyahu as a friend. This year, however, he said the Israel leader had drifted “so, so far to the right”.Salem Barahmeh, the executive director of the Ramallah-based Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy, said Trump had been “extremely dangerous for the entire world, especially for Palestine and our struggle for freedom and rights”.He added, however, that Trump had merely accelerated long-standing US policy from both Republican and Democrat administrations that allowed Israel to continue the occupation with few significant consequences.“The Obama administration and Biden were part of that trajectory,” he said. A Biden win may even be counterproductive for the Palestinian rights movement, he added, arguing that Trump exposed US policy in the region for the facade that it was.“Trump is a polarising figure, he mobilises a lot of resistance,” he said. “With Biden, it would be going back to that normal, but that normal was never good for Palestine and the Palestinians.” More