A ceasefire has been reached between Israel and groups in Gaza, after two days of violence that left 34 Palestinians dead. Many of the Democratic candidates have tweeted about the events, defending Israel’s actions while condemning rocket fire from Palestine. Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders have not mentioned the situation at all.
South Bend Mayor and Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg has tweeted his support for Israel’s attacks on Gaza and a condemned the returning rocket fire from Palestinians. EI’s Tamara Nassar responds on Twitter, “Buttigieg’s position is clear: Palestinian lives don’t matter.”
As Israel continues to launch dozens of missile strikes into Gaza, so far having killed at least 20 Palestinians, including children, and injuring 70 more, former vice president and current Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden took to Twitter to declare that he supports the country’s actions.
Bernie Sanders’ editorial, “How to Fight Antisemitism,” strikes many right notes with today’s progressives, but Nada Elia says his shockingly anachronistic understanding of Israel shows the two-state delusion is a hard one to give up.
Major presidential candidates are now supporting conditioning US aid to Israel. Josh Ruebner says it is up to us to support these candidates’ steps in the right direction while at the same time acknowledging that none of them go nearly far enough. “With continued education, determined and strategic organizing and mobilizing, we will get them there,” Ruebner writes.
Insofar as the subject of conditioning Israel’s aid has permeated mainstream political discourse, it’s remained largely hypothetical. Now activists are calling on progressive Senators who have voiced support for conditioning aid to Israel to get behind a policy with actual teeth.
Pete Buttigieg on the “horrifying” humanitarian crisis in Gaza: “Like many failures, this failure has many fathers. I think that not only should Israel be respecting the human rights of people in Gaza, but Egypt could be doing things differently. The international community could do a better job, the U.S. could do a better job, and, obviously, I’m not a fan of Hamas either.”
On Thursday, by the Wall Street Journal’s Sabrina Siddiqui asked Biden whether he’d consider leveraging aid to Israel to curb settlement expansion. “Not me. Look, I have been on record from very early on opposed to settlements, and I think it’s a mistake,” Biden told the reporter, “And Netanyahu knows my position. But the idea that we would draw military assistance from Israel, on the condition that they change a specific policy, I find it to be absolutely outrageous.”
IfNotNow co-founder Max Berger is an aide to the Warren campaign, a fact that has generated predictable hysteria on right-wing blogs and pro-Israel websites. However, last week DMFI founder Mark Mellman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) that he received a call from Warren campaign manager Roger Lau, assuring him that Berger wouldn’t be working on any issue connected to “Israel policy or Jewish outreach.”
In an interview with the Ames Tribune, Democratic Majority for Israel’s Kat Wellmann praised Harris’ response. “I was very impressed with her. I thought she gave an excellent speech, she gave a very detailed, responsive answer to my question,” she told the paper, “I’m pro-Israel, so I was I was very concerned and all about making sure we limit nuclear missiles in any country that could possibly destroy us all. I thought her answer was very good.”