Dems Turn on Israel As Anger Over Gaza Grows

By | Aug 04, 2025

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1. Have Dems Turned a Corner on Israel?

Last week’s Senate vote on withholding certain arms shipments to Israel would seem, at first glance, to have followed the usual pattern: Senator Bernie Sanders, flanked by posters of starving Gazan children, gave a fiery and, at times, heartbreaking speech. He even presented from the podium a hefty pile of papers that he said contained the names of all those killed by Israel in Gaza. The floor debate consisted of some like-minded progressive Democrats who echoed Sanders’s claims; a few mainstream Democrats who struggled to reconcile their criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza with their refusal even to discuss limiting aid to Israel; and Republicans offering a pro-Israel rebuttal to the claims made by Sanders. As expected, the two pieces of legislation Sanders put forward (one withholding a shipment of rifles and the other relating to heavy bombs) were voted down by a large majority. Seventy senators voted “Nay” and only 27 voted “Yea.”

Within these numbers lies the real story. 

Democrats currently hold 45 seats in the Senate. In addition, there are two Independents (one of them Sanders) who caucus with the Democrats, bringing the Democratic bloc to 47 senators.

Last week, more than half of them voted in favor of blocking arms shipments to Israel. Let that sink in: A majority of Democratic senators are willing to stop a category of arms sales to Israel in the midst of its longest war. Sanders and the progressives may have lost the vote, but they registered a much more significant victory: They captured a majority of Democrats on one of the most sensitive issues these lawmakers have had to deal with.

Anger toward Israel and the Netanyahu government has been percolating  in Democratic circles for years. Bibi’s 2015 speech to Congress, in which he tried to derail President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, may register as the starting point of this trend. Democrats increasingly have felt that Netanyahu is siding with the Republicans and is abandoning the decades-long understanding that relations with Israel must stay above the partisan fray. Tensions with President Biden over the president’s demand that Israel limit its attacks on heavily populated areas in Gaza added fuel to the Democratic fury toward Netanyahu. Now, the dire situation in Gaza, and Israel’s belated and partial response to the humanitarian crisis, are moving even centrist Democrats to rethink their relations with Israel.

Activists on the left celebrated the vote as a clear sign of their success in changing America’s political discourse on Israel. Republicans made sure not to miss the opportunity to paint their rivals as Israel-haters who won’t even provide it with weapons at a time of war. 

Both are wrong.

The Republican claim disregards the fact that Sanders’s legislation included only two specific arms items and would not have harmed Israel’s ability to defend itself. 

And the progressives’ belief that the battle over Israel in Congress has been won is at best premature. Only time will tell if this is the point at which the rift between Israel and the Democrats has become so deep that it can no longer be repaired. 

Just as likely is the scenario in which, once the war ends, Israel’s actions become more agreeable so that centrist Democrats can once again proudly support it.

2. Can the Center Hold?

Recent weeks have provided some signs, however, indicating that the shift in Democrats’ views on Israel may be real.

Take, for example, New York Representative Jerry Nadler, the longest serving Jewish member in the House of Representatives. Nadler has never shied away from criticizing Netanyahu and the actions of his right-wing coalition, but last week he took a symbolic step to the left: He  joined a rally demanding immediate aid to Gaza and delivered a speech critical of Israel. 

Or take Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin, as pro-Israel as they get, who was out of town for the vote but made sure to state that she fully supports Sanders’s legislation proposing to withhold certain arms shipments.  

 

Centrist Democrats are in a tight position. Their instinctive pro-Israel positions are now put to the test. Israel, in its actions on the ground in Gaza and the West Bank, has given them nothing to work with.

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3. Polls Show New Low in Support for Israel

These second thoughts that Democratic lawmakers are having about their initial support for Israel’s actions in Gaza echoes a similar trend among Democratic voters. 

A recent Gallup poll examining American views toward the war in Gaza found a consistent decline in support for Israel. While in November 2023 50 percent of Americans approved of the Israeli military action, by July 2025 60 percent said they were against it. 

Democrats, on the other hand, started off with 36 percent in favor of the war; now a mere eight percent of Democrats say they support Israel’s military actions in Gaza. 

 

Among Republicans, there was hardly any change.

4. Where Trump Stands on Gaza

In recent weeks, President Trump’s views on Gaza and Israel seem to have shifted too. Trump openly disputed Netanyahu’s claim that there is no hunger in Gaza and called for immediate action. At the same time, however, he also reiterated that Hamas is at fault for the lack of a deal on Gaza and demanded its immediate surrender. 

So where does Trump stand on Gaza? Here are a couple of guidelines:

– End the war: That’s Trump’s main goal. He cares more about doing it quickly than about the details of a future deal.

– Return the hostages: Trump has been  clear on this from day one and has now doubled down on the demand that all hostages, alive and dead, need to be released by Hamas.

– The hunger is real: The starvation in Gaza struck a chord with Trump, and he is looking for ways to ensure more food is delivered. 

– Easy on Bibi: Trump is reluctant to apply real pressure on Netanyahu.He believes Bibi is doing his best given the political environment he is operating in.

5. Shifting on a Deal

Tapes released by Hamas this week of emaciated Israeli hostages held in Hamas tunnels in Gaza refocused the discussion on the urgent need to reach a deal.

But the deal now looks a bit different. 

Frustrated from the lack of progress in talks with Hamas, the United States. and Israel agreed to shift its demands away from the original plan for a temporary 60-day ceasefire with partial hostage release, in favor of a comprehensive single-phase agreement. Such a deal would bring an end to the war, release all hostages and withdraw Israeli forces from Gaza.

Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy, told hostage families Saturday that “President Trump now believes that everybody ought to come home at once—no piecemeal deals. That doesn’t work.”

Shifting to a final plan, it’s argued, will help release all the hostages immediately and will ease the urgent humanitarian needs in Gaza.

If it’s such a great idea, why did the United States  waste all this time on trying to reach a temporary ceasefire?

Mainly because of Israel. 

Despite having fought  for more than 20 months, Netanyahu is still not willing to agree on ending the war. He believes that strategically it would be a mistake to call an end to the war before all remnants of Hamas are eliminated. His right-wing coalition partners refuse to consider any scenario in which the war ends and all Israeli forces withdraw.

Then can the idea of shifting to a final agreement even work?

Yes, but it will require real pressure from Trump on Netanayhu. So far, the American president has been averse to leaning too hard on Bibi, but as Trump has proven time and again, policies can always shift.

Top image credit: Willis Lam (CC BY-SA 2.0)

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