Less than two weeks after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, President Joe Biden traveled to Israel and held Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an embrace. The image captured the solidarity Americans felt with Israelis after they suffered such horrific violence. It also symbolized a political and governing reflex within the Democratic Party.
During the Biden presidency, it was shorthanded the “hug Bibi” strategy — the idea that smothering Mr. Netanyahu with unconditional support would give the U.S. leverage to influence his actions. Over the final 15 months of the Biden presidency, this approach led the White House to provide a flood of weapons for Israel’s bombardment of Palestinians, veto United Nations Security Council resolutions calling for a cease-fire, attack the International Criminal Court for pursuing charges against Mr. Netanyahu, ignore its own policies about supporting military units credibly accused of war crimes and blame Hamas for not accepting cease-fire terms that the Israeli government was also rejecting.
This approach made Democrats hypocrites when defending a “rules-based order,” racial equality and democracy. It alienated elements of their base and placed them out of step with younger voters. And in an age of authoritarianism, fealty to an Israeli strongman who routinely humiliated them made Democrats appear weak: Mr. Netanyahu was hugged all the way into the arms of Donald Trump.
Today, with a tenuous cease-fire, it may be tempting for the party to memory hole what has happened in Gaza. After all, Democrats just won some resounding electoral victories focused on affordability, and there is no easy consensus on the Middle East. Yet this would compound the mistake of ignoring, or rationalizing, an intolerable reality.
In Gaza, Palestinians live amid mountains of rubble, Hamas remains entrenched and international journalists are still routinely denied entry to catalog the destruction. The Israeli Parliament has voted (again) in favor of annexing the West Bank, where brutal attacks by Israeli settlers are escalating. Israeli politics has drifted so far to the right that even the removal of Mr. Netanyahu is unlikely to usher in a moderate government that swiftly changes course.
Certainly, this is a painful and personal issue for many politicians and voters genuinely concerned about Israel’s security and Jewish safety around the world. Yet it is past time for Democrats to stop supporting this Israeli government. By letting go of an outdated approach, Democrats can reclaim their values, foster a bigger and more stable coalition and start building the world they want, rather than defending the indefensible.
Democrats have long held virtuous reasons for supporting Israel. Louis Brandeis saw Israel’s socialist kibbutzim as a haven for European Jews and as part of a global effort to advance progressive policies. Harry Truman’s recognition of Israel was a commitment to security for the Jewish people after the Holocaust. Jews marched alongside Black people in pursuit of civil rights and joined them as a core of the Democratic Party’s base. Through the Cold War, Israel retained the dual status of an underdog and a democratic ally.
While this support often overlooked Palestinian displacement, it has become harder for politicians today to square the story they tell about Israel with the reality of a right-wing government determined to block the emergence of a Palestinian state and to annex the West Bank.
Consider the language that many Democrats routinely use. Israel is “the only democracy in the Middle East” and “has a right to defend itself.” The Palestinian Authority must “reform” and be a “credible partner for peace” to achieve “two states, living side by side, in peace and security.” While unobjectionable, the words seem embalmed from the aftermath of the 1993 Oslo Accords, which ostensibly traded Palestinian recognition of Israel for Palestinian self-determination.
By the time I worked in Barack Obama’s White House, Israel was a regional military superpower. Israeli settlements mushroomed across the West Bank. A growing enterprise of security barriers, checkpoints and restrictions on work and freedom of movement consigned Palestinians to a suppressed existence. Hamas controlled Gaza, which was strangled by a permanent Israeli blockade and devastated by episodic wars. The Palestinian Authority governed less than half the West Bank and was delegitimized by its corruption and cooperation with Israeli security forces.
In Washington, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and allied organizations insisted that there be no daylight between the American president and the Israeli prime minister, placing the burden on Mr. Obama to fall in line with Mr. Netanyahu. Through those years, Mr. Netanyahu excoriated Mr. Obama’s foreign policy, particularly any efforts to define the borders of a Palestinian state and his pursuit of a nuclear deal with Iran. This put many Democrats in the awkward position of seeking support from organizations including AIPAC donors and affiliated PACs, which spent tens of millions of dollars to attack a Democratic president’s policies and consistently undermined efforts to achieve a two-state solution.
In 2009, Mr. Netanyahu paid lip service to the potential for a Palestinian state; by 2015, he was promising that there would be no Palestinian state on his watch. This captures the futility of our two efforts to resolve the conflict during the Obama era. In both cases, Mr. Netanyahu seemed more intent on blaming the Palestinians for the failure of talks than on achieving peace. In short, by 2016, those Democratic talking points (which I had routinely used) were a smoke screen — a stale formula to be used in Washington rather than a description of reality in the Middle East.
If Democrats had any illusions about Mr. Netanyahu’s approach to politics, the first Trump administration should have resolved them. After Mr. Trump abandoned the Oslo consensus and moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, Mr. Netanyahu and AIPAC showered him with adulation. Yet when Mr. Trump rolled out the Abraham Accords normalizing relations between Israel and some autocratic Arab states, many Democrats credulously heralded it as a “peace” agreement even though it didn’t end any wars and it sidelined the Palestinians.
After Mr. Biden clinched the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, I supported an effort to insert language into the party’s platform that referred to the Israeli “occupation” of the West Bank and pledged to restrict assistance to Israel if it annexed the Palestinian territories. That effort was rejected, reinforcing the message that Democrats were unwilling to oppose Israeli policies even if they ran directly counter to long-held Democratic Party positions.
In the battle between democracy and autocracy that shadowed the Biden presidency, it was clear what side Mr. Netanyahu was on. Following a now-familiar authoritarian playbook, he clamped down on civil society, attacked independent media, embraced an increasingly violent settler movement and tried to neuter Israeli courts — prompting huge protests. Yet the centerpiece of Mr. Biden’s Middle East policy remained the Abraham Accords, particularly an initiative to bring Saudi Arabia into the arrangement without the creation of a Palestinian state.
Then came Oct. 7. Suddenly, American Jews were confronted by images of a pogrom in southern Israel and the shadow of rising antisemitism in the United States coming from the far right and the far left.
That trauma need not have led inexorably to American support for an Israeli policy of vengeance. Almost immediately after Oct. 7, top Israeli leaders were referring to Palestinians in Gaza as “human animals” living in an “evil city,” and cutting off access to food and water while bombarding Hamas fighters and civilians alike.
Part of what was so maddening about how events played out was how predictable it all was. When the Biden administration eventually urged restraint, it was castigated as insufficiently pro-Israel and the weapons continued to flow. When cease-fires were near, Mr. Netanyahu sustained the war to hold his far-right coalition together, even as polling found a majority of Israelis supported ending the war in exchange for the remaining Israeli hostages. When Democratic lawmakers protested, AIPAC and its affiliates channeled Republican money into Democratic primaries to defeat them.
Few Democrats embraced Israel’s conduct, but many chose to emphasize a story of Palestinian terrorism and rejection of peace. That instinct is part of the problem. Yes, Yasir Arafat was a difficult interlocutor at the 2000 Camp David Summit. Does that justify the relentless displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank ever since? Yes, Hamas has engaged in abhorrent acts of terrorism. Does that warrant dropping 2,000-pound U.S.-made bombs on refugee camps full of children?
Today, no one can deny that the Israeli government prevented aid from reaching Gaza, used force against civilians well beyond the laws of war and destroyed most of the Gaza Strip. Those facts led many scholars, human rights organizations and U.N. bodies to conclude that Israel committed genocide, using weapons supplied by the U.S. — a moral stain that cannot be removed.
Yet many Democrats are left trapped in a no-man’s land sticking to talking points detached from the reality of the Middle East, the rise of global authoritarianism and the far-right direction of both Israeli and American politics. If you believe a Palestinian child is equal in dignity and worth to an Israeli or American child, it is no longer possible to support this Israeli government while hiding behind platitudes about peace.
Voters grasp this reality. Polls have shown that only a third of Democrats have a favorable view of Israel, down from 73 percent in 2014. Majorities of Americans opposed providing military assistance to the Israeli government this summer, and 77 percent of Democrats agree that a genocide has taken place in Gaza. More than 60 percent of American Jews agree that Israel committed war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza, even though a large majority believe that Israel’s existence is vital.
Democratic politicians have begun to respond. This summer, a majority of Democratic senators voted to block arms transfers to Israel. Several dozen House Democrats have recently called for U.S. recognition of a Palestinian state. More Democrats are refusing to take AIPAC money. Yet a tortured debate continues, exemplified by the refusal of some Democratic leaders to back the Democratic nominee for mayor in New York City, disavow AIPAC or stop arming Mr. Netanyahu.
It is not healthy for a party to be this out of step with its own voters and stated beliefs. The simplest thing to do would be the right thing: refuse to provide military assistance to a government that has committed war crimes; support the International Criminal Court in its work, whether it is focused on Vladimir Putin or Benjamin Netanyahu; oppose any effort by Israel to annex the West Bank or ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip; invest in an alternative Palestinian leadership from Hamas that can ultimately govern a Palestinian state; stand up for democracy in Israel as in the United States.
Yes, there must be a big tent over the movement to restore American democracy. But that movement cannot succeed if it is beholden to groups like AIPAC that finance far-right politics.
Will taking these positions quickly resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? No, but they would offer a blueprint to both a different future in the Middle East and align the Democratic Party’s foreign policy with its core convictions.
Some will argue that these positions endanger Israel and the Jewish diaspora. But that only holds if you believe that the current course will keep Israel and the Jewish diaspora safe. I believe the opposite is true.
Because of its actions, Israel is profoundly isolated, and it will only become more so if the status quo holds. Instead of empowering the Israeli right by capitulating to its actions, Democrats should be a source of solidarity for Israelis who want a genuine alternative to Mr. Netanyahu and his coalition. That requires a willingness to use leverage, not a promise to relinquish it.
Of course, there is antisemitism amid Israel’s critics that must be condemned, but the charge is now applied so broadly that it is being debased. This normalizes vile conspiracy theories about Jews by lumping them together with legitimate critiques of Israeli policy.
The Trump administration’s relentless claims that Israel’s critics are antisemitic also obscures the danger posed by the ascent of right-wing ethnonationalists across the West. If you believe a 19-year-old Jewish college student chanting “Free Palestine” is more dangerous than the vice president of the United States implying that Germans should embrace the far-right party Alternative for Germany, then you’re drawing the wrong lessons from history.
Some political support may be lost if Democrats distance themselves from Israel, particularly among donors. But Democrats can make clear that they are willing to support a future Israeli government if it aligns its policies with humane and democratic policies.
Moreover, the political risks are overstated. Large majorities of Jewish Americans continued to vote for Democrats in recent elections despite the fact that Republicans relentlessly sought to use Israel as a wedge issue. By taking the moral high ground, the Democratic Party could bring new voters into its coalition and show that it understands the times we are living through.
Voters want authentic leaders willing to take principled stands — leaders willing to fight for them and against corrupt strongmen wherever they are.
Many Democrats will never embrace the views on Israel of Zohran Mamdani, New York’s mayor-elect. But one reason New Yorkers believed he would fight to lower costs is that they knew he had core convictions. His willingness to be pilloried by powerful people about his views on Israel — including President Trump and some of his billionaire backers — showed that he was not afraid to stand up for his beliefs. By contrast, the familiar pandering to pro-Israel voters by Mr. Mamdani’s main opponent in the mayoral race, Andrew Cuomo — including volunteering for Mr. Netanyahu’s legal defense team — did not come across as particularly courageous or authentic.
The hug Bibi strategy showed that the seemingly safest path can become the most dangerous — as a matter of policy, politics and morality. Particularly in an age of authoritarianism, politicians cannot ask people to face hard realities while avoiding discomfort themselves. A renewed Democratic Party must be rooted in a moral vision that is all too absent in the world. Sometimes, to win, you must show that there are principles for which you are prepared to lose.
Ben Rhodes is a contributing Opinion writer and the author, most recently, of “After the Fall: The Rise of Authoritarianism in the World We’ve Made.”
Source photographs by Evan Vucci/Associated Press and Mahmoud Issa/Reuters.
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The post This Is the Story of How the Democrats Blew It on Gaza
