A recent survey shows that a sizable majority of Democratic voters support Rep. Betty McCollum’s (MN-D) recent bill promoting Palestinian human rights. However, the legislation currently has just 26 cosponsors in the House.
In April, McCollum introduced H.R.2590, the Defending the Human Rights of Palestinian Children and Families Living Under Israeli Military Occupation Act. The bill, which is endorsed by over 75 human rights organizations, aims to block any U.S. funding that would be used by Israel to detain Palestinian children, demolish homes, or annex land. “Congress must stop ignoring the unjust and blatantly cruel mistreatment of Palestinian children and families living under Israeli military occupation,” said McCollum at the time. “I strongly believe there is a growing consensus among the American people that the Palestinian people deserve justice, equality, human rights, and the right to self-determination.”
A new poll from Data for Progress indicates that McCollum was correct about the growing consensus. Last month the group explained the details of the bill to 2,100 likely voters and asked them whether they supported or opposed the legislation. They found that 55% of likely voters and 72% of Democrats support the bill. McCollum’s effort is even backed by 36% of Republican voters.
These findings line up with other recent polls showing that support for Israel is decreasing in the United States, especially among Democrats:
- A 2019 Data for Progress poll found that 65% of Democratic voters want to condition U.S. military aid to the country.
- When the Center for American Progress asked voters about the same issue, 71% of Democrats said they wanted aid conditioned.
- A 2020 University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll found that, of the Democrats who had heard of BDS, 48% of them support support the movement.
- Gallup carries out an annual survey of U.S. attitudes towards the Middle East and this year, for the first time, a majority of Democrats said that the U.S. should apply pressure on Israel, not Palestine.
These trends certainly haven’t led to wide support for H.R.2590 among Democratic lawmakers. The worldwide protests over the forced eviction of Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah and subsequent attack on Gaza did seem to increase the bill’s popularity, with nine House members signing on since May. However, the legislation is supported by just 28 of the 220 Democrats in the House.
Notable members of the Progressive Caucus have yet to back the bill. Including its Deputy Chair Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA), Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY), Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI), Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA). The caucus’ only Senator, Bernie Sanders, also hasn’t introduced a companion bill in the upper chamber of congress.
A new petition calling on Congress and Biden to pass H.R. 2590 has already been signed by over 25,000 people.
They support it, but they do not have the spine to co-sponsor it. Evidence that Israel controls Congress and they know it. If they collective stand up, be united, and work to do the right thing for human rights and help end the occupation, which is what US policies really are, things could change.
We send them aid, give them the weapons (which they use against unarmed civilians), and protect them at the UN, and WE are intimidated by them, and controlled by them.
As Bill Clinton asked “who the eff* is the superpower here”?
(2 of 4) I haven’t seen a tally of members of Congress on that exact question. But Representative McCollum’s bill, which prevents US aid from being used to abuse Palestinian children, enjoys only 25 cosponsors, according to her staff. Since hers is the only legislation I know of to condition US aid, that means 193 out of the 219 Democrats in the House of Representatives, and all 211 House Republicans, oppose any conditioning of US aid at all. Think about that for a second. It’s not just that rank-and-file Democrats are more supportive of pressure on Israel than Democrats in Congress. Even rank-and-file Republicans are more supportive of pressure on Israel than Democrats in Congress.
Which brings us to the $3.8 billion question: Is there a transmission mechanism through which ordinary Americans can make their representatives heed their will? If there is, the media will likely play a crucial role, both in accelerating the shift in public mood, and making that shift harder for politicians to ignore.
There’s no question that press coverage of Israel-Palestine has changed. When Israel went to war in Gaza in 2008-9 and 2014, the US media spoke about Palestinians far more than it spoke to them. During the most recent round of fighting, that changed. From cable TV to the nation’s op-ed pages, Palestinian voices were more prominent. One reason is that the Black Lives Matter movement has made journalists more sensitive to questions of representation. Another is that, over the years, Palestinians and their supporters have responded to their relative exclusion from the mainstream media by gaining influence on social media. And social media now exerts more influence on the mainstream media than it did in the past. When Bari Weiss wrote this January that Twitter has become the “ultimate editor” of The New York Times, she was exaggerating. But social media has become an important way for writers and editors to find stories, find writers and gauge the public mood. And so the pro-Palestinian shift on social media, which has been years in the making, is changing the media as a whole.
As Palestinians and their allies have gained media influence, pro-Israel gatekeepers have lost it. That’s partly because of partisan polarization. There are still lots of high-profile defenders of the Israeli government in the US media. But there are fewer high-profile defenders who have credibility in even moderately progressively spaces.
( 3 of 4) Dershowitz’s views on Israel haven’t changed; he’s long been a fierce defender of Israeli military action. But although long disliked by supporters of Palestinian rights, Dershowitz was once considered respectable by prominent Democrats. Dershowitz met with Barack Obama numerous times to discuss Israel policy when Obama was president. It’s inconceivable that Biden would meet with him today. Dershowitz’s support for Donald Trump has made him a pariah among even moderate Democrats. You’re now more likely to find him on Newsmax than MSNBC or CNN. That means that when Dershowitz lambasts progressives for their supposed hostility to Israel, it’s easier for those journalists to ignore him than it was a decade ago.
The right-wing commentator Andrew Breitbart once claimed that “politics is downstream from culture.” On Israel, American culture is changing. So if Breitbart is right, Washington politics will eventually change too. But I’m not sure he is right. After all, the loudest voices in popular culture—as well as the large majority of Americans—have been demanding gun control legislation for years. Yet even with Democrats in control of the White House and both houses of congress, gun control legislation is going nowhere. On gun control, Washington remains insulated. And it may remain insulated on Israel-Palestine too.
One reason it may remain insulated is that while public preferences matter to politicians, so do the intensity of those preferences. Most Americans support gun control but, traditionally, conservative gun owners who oppose gun control have cared about the issue more. And through groups like the National Rifle Association, they’ve been better organized. On Israel-Palestine, you can see a similar dynamic. Most progressives think it’s wasteful and immoral for the US to give Israel money to build settlements. But for most of them, Israel-Palestine isn’t a priority. For many of the progressive organizations they’re involved in—say the AFL-CIO or NAACP—it’s not a priority either. By contrast, hawkish Jews and hawkish white evangelical Christians are more likely to prioritize Israel-Palestine when they vote, and more likely to join organizations that make it a priority, like AIPAC or Christians United for Israel. As a result, while many members of Congress may represent districts where most people support conditioning US aid, the people those members hear from on the issue—and the ones who donate to their campaigns—may not.
( 4 of 4) The other reason Washington may remain insulated from public opinion is that America’s political system just isn’t that democratic. From the gerrymandering of House districts to the electoral college to the filibuster, the US government is rife with features that allow minorities to thwart the majority’s will. And the Republican Party is now engaged in a brazen effort to wield these anti-democratic features to ensure that America’s fastest growing demographic groups—people of color and younger Americans, the very folks who are most likely to sympathize with Palestinians—can’t translate their numerical weight into political power. When the media covers efforts by state legislatures in Georgia, Florida, or Texas to make it harder for Black and Hispanic Americans to vote, journalists rarely comment on the implications for US policy toward Israel. But make no mistake: The more Republicans succeed in restricting voting, the more durable the pro-Israel consensus in Washington will be.
One more point. When people talk about a political shift on Israel-Palestine, they’re usually comparing the present moment to the last quarter-century, when conditioning aid to Israel has been beyond the pale. But in the decades before that, during the cold war, wielding US aid to pressure Israel wasn’t beyond the pale; it was commonplace. Dwight Eisenhower threatened to restrict US aid. So did Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush. So even if there is growing political support for US pressure on Israel now, there’s still less support than there was when Reagan was president. If you want the US to curb Israeli abuses, this moment looks better than 2010 but worse than 1980 or 1990.
The US and EU and anyone else giving aid to Israel should end it. Israel persecutes Israeli Arabs, commits ethnic cleansing against Palestinians and gives less than equal rights to Black Jews. Another reason to end aid to Israel is that it is not a Developing Nation. Israel receives the most military and economic aid in the world and probably receives more aid than any other nation in the world combined.