Photograph Source: Maryland GovPics – CC BY 4.0
Last month, the Democratic National Committee belatedly released its autopsy of the 2024 election that failed to explain why the party was crushed in the election. The Democrat’s report never mentioned a key issue that contributed to Donald Trump’s victory: Israel and Gaza. Fortunately for the Democrats, Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen has courageously stood up and lambasted the Democrats for their complicity in Israel’s genocidal campaign against the Palestinians as well as their continued support for unlimited military assistance to Israel.
In an oped that appeared in the New York Times last week (“The Hard Truths My Party Needs to Face”), Van Hollen excoriated the Democrats for the “hypocrisy and complicity in the gross violations of the values we profess to hold dear.” These violations included complicity in “ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, or what human rights organizations and scholars have determined to be genocide in Gaza.” Van Hollen should have referred to the fact that several of these organizations and scholars were Israeli.
Van Hollen was specific regarding the changes that need to be made, particularly with regard to arms supplies. He wants the United States to “enforce the same terms and conditions” for Israel that are applied to other countries that receive U.S. arms. Van Hollen argued that Israel must also “comply with international law and U.S. policy” in using U.S.-provided weapons systems, and that the United States must expand sanctions on Israelis who threaten Palestinians on the West Bank. He warned that “voters won’t trust any Democratic presidential candidate who does not have a record of moral and strategic clarity on these issues.”
There is a belated realization among Democrats that the status quo is unacceptable when it comes to ending the Israeli occupation and achieving two states with full political and legal rights for all. Van Hollen is not naive about the “strong resistance” that Democrats will face trying to change direction, but believes that it is necessary to confront senior Democratic decision makers who “white-washed the truth and refused to acknowledge their complicity.”
Times are changing. Last year, only 15 Democrats voted to block the transfer of certain offensive military systems to the Netanyahu government; this year, 40 Democratic senators voted to block the transfer. Recent polling shows that 60 percent of Americans hold an unfavorable view of Israel, compared with 42 percent in 2022. Moreover, among Americans aged 18 to 49, nearly three-quarters view Israel unfavorably, including nearly 60 percent of young Republicans.
There are barriers to making significant changes in policy toward Israel and Hamas. Hamas is branded a terrorist organization in U.S. legislation and in U.S. mainstream media. But Hamas is a liberation movement that resorted to terrorism on October 7, 2023. Israeli sympathizers such as Bret Stephens in the Times and David Ignatius in the Washington Post argue that Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 was a gesture of peace or reconciliation. In fact, Israeli withdrawal was part of a strategic decision to consolidate Israeli control of the West Bank and to turn the Gaza Strip into an “outdoor prison” that could be monitored and guarded from the outside. Certainly, Israel did not withdraw from Gaza for the sake of peace.
There is no question that genocide is unacceptable and the status quo cannot be accepted. As Van Hollen notes, violent settlers have attacked Palestinians with impunity, and Israeli security services are increasingly complicit. He recognizes that the United States, not simply the Democratic Party, has a duty to find an answer as the vow of “never again” is once again betrayed. Israel is not conducting a defensive war against terror; it is conducting incremental genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. As a result, Gaza remains uninhabitable and the West Bank functions as an apartheid system.
