How the siege of Gaza split America: a battle for the political system's soul

Rarely has a head of state received a more hostile welcome than that which met the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, when he arrived in Washington DC to speak before a joint session of Congress last month. While no senior US officials turned up to greet him on the tarmac, thousands of demonstrators marched in protest of his speech, including 200 from the group Jewish Voice for Peace who were arrested during an occupation on Capitol Hill, and others who burned him in effigy and replaced the American flag flying in front of Union Station with a Palestinian flag.

Perhaps more telling was the decision of roughly half of congressional Democrats to boycott the address altogether. "A dozen years ago, that would have been unthinkable," noted Peter Frey, board chair of J Street, a Jewish lobbying group that supports Israeli security as well as a Palestinian state. One lawmaker who did attend, the representative Rashida Tlaib, wore a keffiyeh and held a sign calling Netanyahu a "war criminal" who was "guilty of genocide". Meanwhile, a number of labor unions, including the National Education Association, the Service Employees International Union and United Auto Workers sent a letter to Joe Biden calling for an end to US support for Israel's war in Gaza.

Polling shows that some 70% of Democrats and 35% of Republicans favor conditions on military aid to Israel, but with each day, the disconnect between what voters want and what the Biden administration does seems to widen. One consequence is that citizens' already flagging trust in their government is steadily eroded. "It's a battle for the soul of the political system on this issue," Frey said. "And it's playing out in real time in front of us. It is not healthy. It's not good for Israel." And to the extent that Americans care about foreign policy, he added, "I think it does in the long run maybe undermine confidence in the political system."

That disconnect will be on display next week at the Democratic national convention, where supporters of Palestinian human rights plan to pressure the party to include the call for an immediate ceasefire and a weapons embargo of Israel as planks of its platform. "This is not just a policy stance, it's a moral imperative," said Layla Elabed, an activist with the Uncommitted National Movement (who happens to be Tlaib's sister), on a recent organizing call.

It is a tall order, but for many in the movement, it seems within reach. Months before Biden's disastrous debate performance; before the drumbeat of marquee defections; before the flash of Nancy Pelosi's shank on Morning Joe, the candidacy suffered its first major blow courtesy of these same activists. By persuading more than 100,000 Michigan Democrats to cast their primary ballots for "uncommitted", rather than back the man who they believed was enabling a genocide, they had sent the Democratic establishment a forceful message: one of the most critical swing states in the 2024 election was at risk.

Eventually, more than 700,000 primary voters in 23 states would vote the same way - a signal that support for Israel's actions in Gaza could become a political liability for centrist Democrats, as it recently did for their counterparts in France and the UK. Due to its strong showing, the group won 30 delegates to the DNC.

The protest vote provided another piece of evidence that, at least among liberals, a longstanding affinity for Israel was quickly eroding, one more casualty of a brutal 10-month conflict that shows no sign of ending and may well escalate into a full-on regional war. In addition to killing more than 40,000 Palestinians (and probably many more indirectly), displacing millions and destroying more than half the area's buildings, the Gaza war appears to have damaged, perhaps irreparably, Israel's "special relationship" with its most important champion.

Meanwhile, Biden's stubborn support for the onslaught, despite its apparent failure to meet its stated goals of destroying Hamas and freeing the hostages, has done more than threaten the Democratic coalition. It has stoked a sharp generational divide, with younger Americans nearly twice as likely to express support for the Palestinian cause as their parents - fomenting wrenching generational disagreements, especially within Jewish families. It has riven campuses, leading venerable institutions supposedly dedicated to free inquiry and critical thinking to respond with police violence to the mostly peaceful activism of their own students. And perhaps most alarmingly, it has given many Americans cause to doubt our nation's commitment to free speech, human rights and the rule of law - to wonder, in short, just what America stands for.

Among those most unsettled by the new dynamic are left-leaning Jewish students, many of whom maintain a broad devotion to Israel even as they decry its current policies. Now, many of them find themselves increasingly isolated from longtime political allies. While troubled by the strident rhetoric heard at some protests they otherwise support, they are nonetheless distressed by the efforts of pro-Israel advocacy groups, establishment politicians and college administrators to paint all anti-war demonstrations as antisemitic.

"I identify as a progressive," said Lauren Haines, a senior at the University of Michigan and the former president of J Street U, the group's campus wing. "I look at pictures and hear about Gaza every single day, like it keeps me up at night, just knowing that I could be complicit because my tax dollars are going to this. But I've been very frustrated by some of the left's tactics. There's this false dichotomy of 'you're with us or against us.'"

She continued: "I stand with the Palestinian people, and I think you can absolutely fight for justice for them without engaging in this really polarizing and harmful discourse, like saying all Zionists are evil or attacking Jewish institutions for having ties to Israel."

That said, Haines decries the violent repression of pro-Palestine demonstrations. "The sheer amount of police violence on college campuses has been absolutely disgusting," Haines said, "even if I disagree with protesters on some things."

The novelist Omar El Akkad has been similarly troubled by the violent repression of demonstrations. "When I looked at these campus protests, I saw some of the most diverse coalitions of human beings that I've seen in any context within the United States," he noted. "And the response from university administrators and a slew of politicians seemed to run against every central principle of what makes the United States sometimes feel like an exceptional society."

While conservatives seem untroubled by the devastation in Gaza (Trump has advised Israel to "finish it up"), many Americans remain deeply attached to a national self-conception as a beacon of freedom and human dignity. What so troubles a younger generation is not only US support for the Gaza offensive but what it says about the country's role in the world, said Michael Barnett, a professor of international affairs and political science at George Washington University. "It's the idea of an immoral US foreign policy - that there's just something that is too cutthroat, too wrong, too unethical," he said. Denouncing Russian aggression in Ukraine while giving Israel an apparent blank check to obliterate Palestine simply doesn't compute. "The hypocrisy is ripe," Barnett explained, "and they're picking up on it."

In February, Akkad, who is best known for the 2017 novel American War, will publish a nonfiction book about widespread indifference to the horrors of Gaza, entitled One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. Growing up in Egypt and Qatar, he said, he admired the United States as "a place where there were these underlying principles of equal justice and fairness under the law and all that". But now, "as I watch virtually every leader of every major superpower in the west kind of shrug off a genocide, and even using the term becomes this matter of polite debate", he said, he's not so sure.

The longer the war goes on, it seems, the more this anguish over America's complicity is likely to grow. "I think in some ways everyone is feeling this," Frey said, "whether you're a politician or you're just a layperson, whether you're Jewish or non-Jewish. It is an extremely uncomfortable situation, and it continues because the war unfortunately is continuing, and the stories that are coming out just keep perpetuating it."

Whether a possible Kamala Harris administration would change course is uncertain. Some observers were cheered by Harris's reportedly tough conversation with Netanyahu and her decision to select Tim Walz over Josh Shapiro, whose support for Israel and denunciation of antiwar protesters outraged progressives.

Then again, there's room for skepticism that the vice-president would significantly alter US policy. After reports circulated that she had agreed to meet with uncommitted delegates to discuss an arms embargo, her national security adviser, Phil Gordon, clarified her position. The vice-president, he wrote, "will always ensure Israel is able to defend itself against Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups. She does not support an arms embargo on Israel. She will continue to work to protect civilians in Gaza and to uphold international humanitarian law."

As Israel continues its assault, decimating Gaza and killing civilians and militants alike with US supplied weapons, such equivocations strike many Americans as deeply hollow. With thousands of anti-war protesters descending on Chicago to protest against the DNC, and dozens of uncommitted delegates making their case inside the hall, the question of America's role in what many experts have called a genocide will figure prominently at the convention. Harris's answer will have far-reaching implications - not only for her candidacy, the prospect of peace in the Middle East, and the beleaguered civilians rushing from one "safe zone" to the next as bombs explode around them, but for the US's global standing and its citizens' faith in its reputation as a force for good in the world.