The crisis in Gaza reached new horrific levels this week as the world’s leading authority on famine and food security declared that mass starvation and death is imminent within the enclave unless Israeli forces begin allowing more aid into the Strip.
In Washington, the mood among Democrats on the issue is dark. Having chained their party to support for Israel under the Biden administration, the party suffered a devastating defeat in 2024 and are now being forced to watch a resurgence on the progressive pro-Palestinian left.
Despite breathless insistences to the contrary by center-left commentators, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the base of the Democratic Party is shifting away from the pro-Israel consensus long upheld by the DC foreign policy establishment.
It’s not just the left, either; new polling shows a generational divide across all party lines on the issue of sympathy for support of Palestinian statehood and an end to the slaughter in Gaza.
Few will say it openly, but no one is denying it on the left: there has been an earthquake within the party.
The upstart victory of Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic primary for New York City mayor came amid a barrage of coverage from the mainstream media — including his hometown papers, the New York Times and New York Post — which often insinuated that Mamdani harbored anti-Semitic beliefs or falsely accused him of expressing them. It also rebuked the endorsements of aging Democratic would-be kingmakers Bill Clinton and James Clyburn, who issued late-game endorsements of New York’s former governor, Andrew Cuomo.
In a poll out Tuesday from the IMEU Policy Project conducted by Data for Progress, a clear portrait of the race emerges. Nearly eight in 10 New York mayoral primary voters said they believed Israel was committing a genocide in Gaza.
Putting aside the mayoral race entirely for a moment — how does a candidate in the ideological vein of Joe Biden or Kamala Harris fare among an electorate like that?
In the same poll, 63 percent of Democratic primary voters in the city supported what could easily be described as Mamdani’s most hardline position on the matter of Israel-Palestine: his support for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were he ever to visit the city. A lower figure than the number that are willing to assign the term “genocide” to the conflict, but far from insignificant.
A news article in the Jewish magazine Forward put the question plainly on Monday: “After Mamdani and Gaza, are Democrats turning against Israel?”
Democrats in New York and across the country are quickly waking up to the rapidly shifting ground beneath them.
Rep. Ritchie Torres, a Democrat and vocal critic of his colleagues in the so-called “Squad,” bluntly assessed that he could not win a Democratic primary for governor in the state after Mamdani’s victory.
Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic House Minority Leader, reportedly told allies that he doubts his ability to win the speakership with Mamdani in play.
Kirsten Gillibrand, New York’s junior US senator, issued a humbling apology to Mamdani after accusing him (falsely) of supporting “jihad.”
The efforts to dodge what could be a historic wave of primary challenges fueled by progressive rage over the next three years are hastily getting underway.
Joe Biden’s departure from the White House and Netanyahu’s close alliance with Trump make criticizing Israel a much easier prospect for Democrats. The mass starvation and shocking killings of Palestinians at aid reception areas by Israeli troops have accelerated the criticism of Israel from Washington Democrats in the past week.
In the Senate, a large coalition of Democrats led by Chris Van Hollen of Maryland is urging the Trump administration to publicly break with the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and return to reliance on neutral international groups to provide aid. Van Hollen, who was a lonely voice for Palestinian suffering under the Biden administration, now has the backing of nearly half of his caucus.
One unsurprising holdout was John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania senator and vocal supporter of Israel, including some of its most controversial war-fighting methods that have been denounced as war crimes by the International Criminal Court and others.
Fetterman, up for reelection in 2028, has vultures circling him. Conor Lamb, his former primary opponent, is punching him relentlessly on social media and in a series of public appearances he’s made at town hall-style events across the state.
Lamb, who tweeted in support of destroying Hamas and supporting Israel after the October 7 attacks, lost out on endorsements from the progressive left that now despises Fetterman when they ran against each other in 2022. Another Pennsylvania congressman, a Democrat, tweeted (publicly!) that he hopes Fetterman doesn’t run for president.
This past week, Lamb tweeted that he hopes Pope Leo, the first American pontiff, “continues to speak against starvation and barbarity in Gaza.”
Members of the House are speaking out as well.
Rep. Andre Carson, a Democrat from Indiana, came out in support of an arms embargo against Israel on Monday while accusing Netanyahu’s government of “starving” the population of Gaza.
Others, including Madeleine Dean, demanded another ceasefire be hammered out. Torres attacked a Republican colleague for making repeated Islamophobic remarks about Rep. Ilhan Omar, and in an interview with Chuck Todd blasted Netanyahu for doing “irreparable” harm to the relationship between Israel and the Democratic Party.
Leadership is lagging behind but clearly feels the wind shifting: Minority Whip Katherine Clark and Jeffries released statements on Friday on the starvation, each condemning the crisis, neither one using the word “Israel” at any point.
Even Barack Obama, hesitant as he typically is to speak out on the issue of the day in his post-presidency, put out a statement seemingly critical of Israel, writing in part: “There is no justification for keeping food and water away from civilian families.”
The only Democrats who are being truly silent on the issue are tied directly to the former administration. Pete Buttigieg and Kamala Harris are widely seen as two of the most likely to contend for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination. Neither has issued a word about Gaza for months. Harris, also thought to be considering a run for governor of California, hasn’t sat for a long-form interview this year.
In the end it could be difficult to determine exactly how much of the stink attached to former Biden-world figures relates to Gaza, as opposed to the year(s?)-long coverup of the president’s declining faculties.
One thing is for certain: something shifted in the past week, something beyond just the fallout from election of a charismatic Muslim candidate in a prominent but isolated primary race.
