The Democratic Party is at a crossroads over its stance on Israel, with elected officials, now untethered from a White House leader directing policy, forced to take sole ownership of their stances.
That came into sharp focus as the reaction to a pair of interviews Wednesday played out online.
The famine in Gaza continues to worsen after being officially recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO). With only its closest allies denying the existence of efforts by the Israeli government and citizens to restrict food and water aid into the besieged Gaza Strip, public support for Israel is plunging in the U.S. and has utterly collapsed within the Democratic Party.
A new survey this week from Quinnipiac University found that more than 7 in 10 Democrats now believe that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. There’s no question which way the winds are blowing: in July, the party’s rising stars like Elissa Slotkin, Ruben Gallego and Jon Ossoff backed a resolution to block arms sales to Israel, and high-ranking members of the former Biden administration are now openly trashing the Netanyahu government in interviews.
On Wednesday, two Democrats inescapably linked to the war in Gaza and the party’s stance on that conflict discussed the topic on camera. The reception their respective interviews received in Democratic circles couldn’t have been much worse.
In Congress, Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York is one of Israel’s most passionate defenders, at least on the left. The issue has caused major rifts between Torres and progressive members of his party like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and has come to be his defining issue in a way it has for few others. Torres sat down this week with comedian and “dirtbag left” podcaster Adam Friedland, and the two battled over the ongoing siege.
Friedland relentlessly hammered Torres during the conversation and pressed the congressman to explain whether he believed that Palestinians bore historical blame and responsibility for acts committed against Jews by other Arab states around the Middle East and Africa.
“I think hatred of Jewish people has exploded in this country, and I think it’s because of our support of what looks to be an absolute brutality [in Gaza],” the host told Torres, as he passionately spoke about his experience in Israel and how the disparity of Israeli-Palestinian life affected his view of an issue he’d been taught was central to Jewish identity.
Torres responded by pushing Friedland, who is Jewish (Torres is not) and previously lived in Israel, on whether he was “justifying antisemitism” in the United States.
“Are you crazy right now?” Friedland shot back, his mouth open.
The backlash online was relentless.
Torres was called a “sociopath” by progressives and a “shill” for the Israel lobby. Still, the labels are nothing new for the congressman, who has made no secret of his own strong dislike of his party’s left wing.
Torres is known to be popular within his district; it’s unclear if he’ll face a primary challenge from a Democratic Socialists of America-backed candidate or another progressive next year. In July, he claimed to CNN that he wasn’t afraid of “Mickey Mouse” primary challenges, while calling out DSA by name.
But his proximity to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), both geographically and politically, could still make one an inevitable prospect if real momentum builds behind progressive bids to shake up the New York congressional delegation.
The other Democrat to take a beating on Israel this week was Jake Sullivan, former national security adviser to the Biden administration.
Sullivan, still a respected voice among the center-left on issues of foreign policy, revealed in an interview that he’d spoken with multiple members of Congress and advised them that support for blocking arms sales to Israel after the breakdown of ceasefire talks was a “credible” position.
“Following the breakdown of the ceasefire in March, [it] means that a vote to withhold weapons in Israel is a totally credible position that I’d support,” said the former senior White House official.
He’d go on to assert that “political change” within Israel and the end of right-wing control over Israel’s government (referring to Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration) would be the only way to avert Israel from permanently changing into something unrecognizable to the U.S., which he said would impact the relationship between the U.S. and Israel going forward.
Sullivan was torched for those remarks.
Matt Duss, a former advise to Sen. Bernie Sanders, tweeted that he “wasn’t buying” Sullivan’s change of heart, given that the Biden White House was “sending out talking points that voting against weapons to Israel was ‘aiding Hamas.’”
The Hill’s White House columnist Niall Stanage resurfaced Sullivan’s remarks from a White House briefing in May of 2024 as a response; the national security adviser, at the time, claimed that Israel was not restricting aid into Gaza as a matter of policy.
“This is immensely frustrating to watch. Nothing Jake points to here is materially different than when he actually had power,” insisted Jeremy Konyndyk of Refugees International. “Yet there is zero self-reflection about that.”
“Less than a year ago when Jake Sullivan worked in the White House, he lobbied against Senators voting to block weapons. But now he’s come up with an arbitrary cutoff for when voting to block weapons is good,” added Hamid Bendaas, spokesman for the IMEU Policy Project.
The question no longer seems to be whether there will be blowback within the Democratic Party for Joe Biden’s year-plus-long embrace of Benjamin Netanyahu, and Kamala Harris’ refusal to back away from it. Now, the question seems to be how far it will spread, and how many party prospects will see their future ambitions wilt on the vine as a result.
Gavin Newsom, the California governor emerging as the left’s champion on redistricting, hasn’t commented on the war in months from his personal social media account.
Pete Buttigieg, once seen as one of the party’s most effective advocates in front of a camera, is back on the sidelines and being overtaken by Newsom in 2028 polling after being forced to do his own Gaza-related damage control following an interview on what should have been his home turf, Pod Save America.
Harris has methodically avoided interviews since leaving office, and isn’t likely to change that tactic any time soon.
Will Democrats find a unifying position on Gaza? It seems far off on the horizon, after party leaders failed to do so in a policy session this week. DNC officials are headed back to the drawing board after pulling two resolutions on the issue, including one supported by embattled chair Ken Martin.
Moreso than Biden’s age and frailty, the party’s civil war over support for Israel threatens to shake up the 2028 field in a way that could be devastating for the DNC establishment and those Biden-world alums with future dreams of office.
As the war drags on and Democrats have the power to do little besides self-reflect, many on the left could be hoping that Donald Trump succeeds in inking a permanent ceasefire before 2028 — even if it finally wins the GOP president the label of peacemaker he’s long sought.
