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With Israel on the verge of implementing plans to permanently occupy the Gaza Strip in what Benjamin Netanyahu has described as the “final” military assault of the war, Democrats are no closer to a unified message on the issue.
Party leaders were silent after news broke late last week of the Netanyahu government’s approval of an operation for the total seizure of the territory and the displacement of all remaining civilians to an area south of the Strip.
An Israeli military spokesman confirmed in a televised statement on Monday that the operation would amount to “a wide attack, involving moving most of Gaza’s population,” adding: “This is for their protection in an area clean of Hamas.”
The Trump administration has not commented on the Israeli government’s threat, which officials say will be carried out if a ceasefire agreement is not reached during the US president’s visit to the Middle East next week. But a spokesperson for the National Security Council said on Monday: “Hamas bears sole responsibility for this conflict and for the resumption of hostilities.”
With the GOP in apparent lockstep with the Netanyahu government and in some cases willing to openly cheer on the idea of total extermination of the Palestinian people, Democrats remain bitterly divided and consumed by infighting.
As more of the Biden administration’s critics become increasingly emboldened by a combination of Kamala Harris’s defeat in November and the continued dismal approval ratings for congressional Democratic leadership, a sort of post-op primary is taking place within the Democratic Party.
It escalated on Thursday of last week when the hosts of Pod Save America, a liberal podcast run by former Obama staffers, tore into the Biden/Harris White House. Capping off their disgust at the Biden administration’s handling of the war was a report from an Israeli news channel which quoted the country’s former ambassador to the US, Michael Herzog, as saying that Biden officials “never” demanded that Israel make genuine attempts at reaching a ceasefire with Hamas.
Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser, and speechwriter Tommy Vietor unloaded on their counterparts in Bidenworld.
“It is an immoral abomination that will be a stain on this country and on Israel for the rest of our lives,” Rhodes said.
Vietor would go on to call the Biden White House’s policy on Israel “a total f***ing disgrace” and said Biden’s “unrequited, obsessive loyalty to Netanyahu” had “blinded” the US president to the “carnage, and the, like, total immorality of the policy [of Israel] and the US complicity in that policy.”
Of the planned Israeli assault, Rhodes added: “There’s no military necessity to continue this war.”
“They were saying at the time, they were working, like, relentlessly – they were not! They were not,” an exasperated Rhodes exclaimed.
The resulting firestorm on the left over the Israeli news report reopened wounds that were barely beginning to heal. Every Democratic politician who parroted the Biden White House line about the US “tirelessly” working for a ceasefire — from Kamala Harris to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — now faces a simple question: were they intentionally misleading voters, or being taken for chumps?
Many on the left also remain furious over the former president’s support for law enforcement action taken to end pro-Palestinian protests and disperse encampments on college campuses around the country. That action, they say, paved the way for the Trump administration’s efforts to imprison and revoke visas of foreign students who participated.
Biden’s defenders, meanwhile, have continued to train fire on a familiar accusation: the argument that left-leaning voters swung the 2024 election to Donald Trump by staying home in November. The Uncommitted campaign led a months-long effort to rebuke then-President Joe Biden during the largely ceremonial Democratic primary contests nationwide, but endorsed Kamala Harris ahead of the election.
The Bulwark’s managing editor Sam Stein took that position on Sunday as he wondered on Twitter/X: “I've been routinely curious if the pro-Palestinian activists that urged voters to abstain from voting or even back Trump would being to feel regret as they watch what's happening in Gaza.”
A corresponding article, penned by reporter Lauren Egan, accused “pro-Palestinian” voters including the Uncommitted movement of giving Trump “a boost” during the 2024 election in the headline. The piece quoted pro-Israel Democratic operatives blaming them for “bad choices” even as it robbed Harris of all responsibility for winning over disaffected Democratic voters and declined to acknowledge the months-long deception regarding efforts to reach a ceasefire.
The outlet’s combined coverage kicked off an avalanche of rebukes from progressives, as it seems neither camp is budging.
“I understand there’s a narrative to push and a strong reluctance within Team Biden/Harris to self-reflect (no mention here of Times of Israel massive exposé last week),” wrote former Justice Democrats spokesman Waleed Shahid in a tweet responding to Stein. “But headline, photo, and story just don’t reflect reality or approach of Uncommitted.”
Just as the party was divided when the issue of the Laken Riley Act came up for a vote in January, it seems as if the nation’s only opposition party is too hopelessly divided to present a unified front as Trump and Netanyahu attempt to force a future on Gaza on their terms. The winner? Donald Trump, who will likely continue to benefit from his enemies’ division as midterms approach and some Democrats remain more eager to fight their own voters than the president.
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