While Donald Trump’s ceasefire in Gaza is appearing shakier by the day, the fact that he was able to impose it remains significant. Its greatest significance is, of course, that it has allowed the people of Gaza some respite from the bulk of the Israeli onslaught, even though Israel has not completely stopped its aggression. It has also allowed for an increase in the amount of humanitarian aid that is reaching the people of Gaza, even if Israel continues to renege on its agreements and is restricting the aid more than was agreed upon.
A longer-term and more distant consequence is the continuing impact of Gaza on American politics. Trump’s imposition of even this modicum of a ceasefire has embarrassed his Democratic predecessor and his 2024 rival, both of whom stubbornly refused to even threaten pressure on Israel to end its genocide.
Joe Biden negotiated one ceasefire in November 2023 and had a hand in the second in January 2025. But neither of these was ever seriously expected to end Israel’s wholesale slaughter of Palestinian civilians, and they didn’t. Trump’s current effort may fail as well, but it was imposed on Israel as a permanent end to this chapter of Israel’s ongoing war on the Palestinians.
Advocates for Palestinian rights insisted from the start that one phone call, with the president threatening the flow of weapons to Israel, would have ended the genocide. That was true, but it is also true that the president of the United States has other tools at their disposal, with the cutoff of arms to Israel, though obviously desirable in and of itself, representing something of a political “nuclear option.”
It didn’t matter because Biden was clear in his refusal to use any tools to stop Israel’s genocide. His vice president, Kamala Harris—who would eventually replace Biden as the Democratic nominee in the 2024 election—never indicated the slightest disagreement with Biden regarding that policy.
Rumors were dropped during Harris’ campaign that she felt that Biden should have expressed more empathy with the suffering of Palestinians. But even those whispers hinted at no policy disagreements, and everything she did during the campaign—from her infamous “I’m speaking now” declaration in the face of anti-genocide protests to her refusal to allow even the most moderate Palestinian voice to be heard at the Democratic National Convention—reinforced the perception that she was in lockstep with Biden’s indifference to Palestinian lives.
That’s not to suggest that Trump has any more concern for Palestinians than Biden or Harris. Trump’s willingness to press hard on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a ceasefire was motivated by his anger over Netanyahu’s attack on Hamas negotiators in Qatar, a country that had lavished gifts and massive investment opportunities on Trump and his family, thereby ingratiating itself with the corrupt president. It was certainly not done out of sympathy for Palestinians.
Regardless of the motives, however, Trump proved once again that when an American president makes a firm demand of Israel, he cannot be ignored. Biden knew that, too. It just didn’t matter to him because he didn’t want Israel to stop.
For those who might think that an overstatement of Biden’s obsessive Zionism and utter disdain for Palestinian lives, consider the words of Israeli activist and well-known negotiator, Gershon Baskin.
Writing on his Facebook page in the wake of Trump’s ceasefire, Baskin, who has maintained strong connections with Israeli, Palestinian (including Hamas), and American interlocutors over the years, tells us,
“Hamas agreed to the same terms in September 2024…But at the time, the response of Israeli negotiators was that ‘the Prime Minister does not agree to end the war.’ Even though the proposed ‘three-week deal’ reached President Biden’s office, his envoy Brett McGurk refused to mention the bad deal he was negotiating. I met with members of the US negotiating team in October 2024 and they were as frustrated as I was by their inability to persuade Biden and his advisors to seriously consider the deal.”
There’s little ambiguity here. Biden never intended to push Netanyahu to do anything he didn’t want to do.
Harris apologists, rather than joining the effort to get her to shift her stance on Gaza so that Trump could be defeated, argued that Trump would be even worse for Palestine than Biden had been. That argument has aged very poorly.
For the first nine months of Trump’s second term, one could make the case that Trump was at least as bad as Biden on Palestine, or even worse. Although the vast majority of death and destruction in Gaza happened early in Israel’s onslaught, some Israeli steps during Trump’s administration—such as the complete elimination of all aid into the Strip for more than two months—were intensifications of existing Israeli policy that greatly increased the suffering in Gaza.
But Trump used some of the tools at the president’s disposal, something Biden refused to do. Kamala Harris gave every indication she would follow her former boss’s example.
A clear political avenue for Democrats
It’s important not to lose focus on the fact that Trump’s 20-Point Plan is a recipe for institutionalized apartheid, subjugation of the Palestinians, and exploitation of Palestine by both Western and Arab states. While it goes against the most extreme plans of the Israeli far-right for the moment, it still offers nothing to the Palestinians beyond the hope that the last two years of genocide will stop.
Yet even this opens a door for the Democrats to take Palestine policy and turn it from an electoral embarrassment to an advantage. But it requires doing something only a very few members of the Democratic Party have ever been willing to do: support universal and equal rights in Palestine and Israel.
Trump’s ceasefire plan is already starting to fray, and its longer-term aspirations are utterly hopeless. As it becomes more obvious to the public that it has failed, Democrats will have the chance to seize the momentum.
The foundations are already there for them to do it. Israel has roundly rejected the Democratic Party. Despite Biden’s full partnership in every aspect of the genocide, and contrary to the views of most American Jews, Netanyahu fully backed Trump.
Democratic voters noticed. An October 3 Pew Research poll of Americans found that 33% believe we are giving Israel too much aid, while only 23% think we are giving the right amount and only 8% say it is not enough.
Just 18% of Democrats have a favorable view of the Israeli government, according to the Pew poll.
It’s not news that Democratic voters have a dim view of Israel as it is presenting itself now. While most liberal and moderate voters continue to distinguish between the Israeli people and the government, that distinction is inevitably going to blur the more Americans come to understand how much of the Israeli Jewish population—both supporters of the government and of the opposition—supports the oppression of Palestinians.
Israel made its choice and has chosen a rejection of not only progressive values, but liberal and even centrist ones as well. Democratic voters have also made it clear that they want a party that opposes the oppression of Palestinians, and does so with impactful policy, not mere empty rhetoric about “empathy.”
The evidence is strong that Democrats’ callous and racist attitude toward the Palestinians lost them the 2024 election. Changing that position and acting on that change could be the key to overcoming the considerable obstacles in 2026 and 2028 that Republicans are putting up right now.
Will the Democrats seize the moment?
It’s difficult to be optimistic about the Democrats’ ability to understand these political trends in the face of campaign money. New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, for example, can’t even utter any criticism of Netanyahu, and for good reason: he is already flush with AIPAC cash for the next election cycle. Indeed, his war chest is so big (from many sources, including a lot that are far bigger than AIPAC) that no Democrat or Republican has yet emerged to challenge him next year.
But there are signs that Democrats might be starting to catch on.
Kamala Harris seems to have begun to recognize what a mistake she made. In an interview on October 12, Harris was asked if she considered what Israel had done in Gaza a genocide, she responded, “I will tell you that when you look at the number of children that have been killed, the number of innocent civilians that have been killed, the refusal to give aid and support, we should all step back and ask this question and be honest about it, yeah.”
That stops well short of an honest answer or an admission that she took Gaza far too lightly when she was vice president and in the 2024 race. But it is also a shift from her campaign rhetoric. Harris is allowing that the question is a legitimate one. That reflects a growing understanding that Democrats will have to change their attitude toward Israel and Palestine dramatically if they hope to succeed in future elections.
Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), a centrist Democrat always known as pro-Israel, announced on Thursday that he would be returning $35,000 that AIPAC had donated to his run at a Senate seat. In Michigan, a Democratic candidate for Senate, Mallory McMorrow, joined two of her opponents in refusing AIPAC’s endorsement or money, although she had only recently been praised by the lobby group.
AIPAC’s most recent propaganda tour to Israel, which is usually a must for all but the most progressive of new members of Congress, attracted only 11 of 33 first-term congresspeople.
A recent New York Times report spoke in near-panicked tones about the loss of AIPAC’s influence among Democrats, and even AIPAC’s spokesperson could only echo bland talking points in an attempt to deny reality.
There is a clear avenue opening for Democrats on this issue. Even if the ceasefire in Gaza holds, the passing weeks and months will undoubtedly demonstrate how short-sighted and ill-conceived Trump’s broader plan for Gaza is. It was crafted completely without Palestinian input and reflects no respect for Palestinian rights or any real hope for Palestinian self-determination.
It will fail; there can be no real doubt about that. Democrats will have the opportunity to capitalize on that if they choose to finally come around to supporting Palestinian rights.
But it won’t be effective unless they recognize and hold themselves accountable for refusing to take the actions Trump has taken to end the genocide. Vague, tiny steps away from the anti-Palestinian hate they have expressed will not suffice. There will need to be a clear reversal of their position and, as far as such things are ever possible in politics, an admission that they got it wrong.
Supporters of Palestinian rights have no illusions about Donald Trump’s or the Republicans’ willingness to respect those rights. They are waiting eagerly for someone to take the lead on making Palestinian rights a priority in Mideast policy.
Democrats have their chance. They need to be pushed hard to make something of it.
Re the whole mess: The NYT ran a very long interview with Rob Malley and Hussein Agha, authors of the recently published “Tomorrow Is Yesterday.”, which has been discussed a lot in the circles that talk about this stuff.
One of the points they make is that Israel can’t fight a war for more than two weeks without American aid – U.S. presidents have tremendous leverage if they can find the will to use it. Here’s Malley’s opening comments:
So there’s everything to criticize about the way the deal was brought about, the way its components — I mean, it was a deal that was done without real consultation with the Palestinians. It’s a deal that seems to ask of the Palestinians to atone for the massacre of Oct. 7, but doesn’t ask Israel to atone for the war that followed. It asks for the deradicalization of Gaza. It does not ask for the end of Israel’s messianic tendencies….It’s going to have every foreign intervention, and how, in the future of Palestinian governance. And it was brokered by a president who for months gave all power to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government to lead the war the way they wanted to and to famish Palestinians….So that’s the backdrop. Plus it has vagueness. It is full of contradictions in terms of having no time tables, no arbiter — nowhere to go if there’s a violation, as we’ve already seen in the last few days.
Opinion | Can the Israel-Hamas Deal Hold? – The New York Times
Racism against Arabs in general, and Palestinians in particular, seems to be endemic and socially acceptable in the US and the UK. In various forums I follow, otherwise sensible Democrat voters are still blaming the small number of Arab-American voters in Michigan for Harris’s loss last November. They cannot cope with the obvious – that the Dems threw those votes away (and they didn’t tip victory into defeat anyway). Still, scapegoating a minority group is much easier than admitting uncomfortable facts.
I agree with virtually everything in this piece except for one small point— this NYT article (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/us/politics/democrats-aipac.html ) does not speak in panicked tones about AIPAC’s declining influence. If anything, the writer seems to approve and cites evidence against AIPAC’s stance that Israel is fighting in Gaza as humanely as possible.
Much of the NYT reporting about Israel has a pro- Israel slant ( and and they also let Biden off the hook, portraying his actions the way he would want them portrayed) but there are other articles which are better and this was one of them.
It is good to call for Palestinian rights.
It would be even better to call for equal rights for all Jews and Palestinians who belong to the territory between the River and the Sea
Mitchell again displays fully his blinders to some of the most important developments in US relations to Israel (and US politics in general) in this plea for the Democratic party to change their position of pandering to Zionism for the cash.
There are major cracks emerging in support for Israel in the majority of Americans who have no interest in the Democratic party, and it is the decline in support among conservatives, especially younger conservatives, which is among the key sources of pressure on Trump. Phil Weiss has commented on this, that America first conservatives are tired of the US being subservient to Israel, and have started to object. Tucker Carlson is probably the best known voice, the emerging opposition of Charlie Kirk was, of course cut short, but his organization is in serious debate about the issues.
It is not a great step from having one’s eyes opened about Israel to seeing that the Islamophobia which is so rampant is the same circles may decrease substantially when it becomes clear that were our government not so craven toward Israel, the hostility towards us among most of the Arab world would substantially subside.
It really is time to realize that the party of Cory Booker, Gavin Newsom, Nancy Pelosi, JB Pritzker et al is not where any positive change will be coming from, and start exploring real practical, political coalition and dialogue.
Trump is corrupt, but his familial relation with Qatar is not why Israel was compelled to cut back its genocidal behavior in a meaningful way. The dynamic is far more complex…..