SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
gaza
'Damning' New Poll Shows Price Kamala Harris Paid for Backing Israeli Genocide in Gaza
"Israel is a liability," said one Palestinian-American rights advocate.
Jan 15, 2025
As a cease-fire and hostage release deal was reportedly reached between Hamas and Israel on Wednesday, new polling made it clearer than ever that Vice President Kamala Harris' refusal to break with the Biden administration's position on Israel's relentless assault on Gaza had an impact on her support from voters, and contributed to millions of potential Democratic voters deciding to stay home on Election Day.
A YouGov poll backed by the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) Policy Project and released on Wednesday showed that among the 19 million people who voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 but did not vote in 2024, nearly a third named Israel's U.S.-backed war on Gaza as a top reason for staying home.
"The top reason those non-voters cited, above the economy at 24% and immigration at 11%, was Gaza: a full 29% cited the ongoing onslaught as the top reason they didn't cast a vote in 2024," wrote Ryan Grim at Drop Site News, the first outlet to report the news.
In states that swung from Biden in 2020 to President-elect Donald Trump in 2024, 20% of non-voters said Gaza was the reason they didn't cast a ballot in November.
After replacing Biden as the nominee in July, Harris faced pressure—as the president had—to take decisive action to end U.S. support for Israel's assault on Gaza, which has now killed more than 46,000 Palestinians, the majority of whom have been civilian men, women, and children.
Advocates called on Harris to support an arms embargo on Israel—one that would have placed the U.S. in compliance with its own laws, such as Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act, which bar the government from providing military aid to any country that is blocking U.S. humanitarian aid.
The U.S. has made more than 100 military transfers to Israel since it began bombarding Gaza in October 2023 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack. Israel's near-total blockade on humanitarian aid has left parts of the enclave facing famine, according to the World Food Program and international experts.
"We want to support you, Vice President Harris, and our voters need to see you turn a new page on Gaza policy that includes embracing an arms embargo to save lives," one leader of the Uncommitted National Movement told Harris at an event in August. At the same event, the vice president accused protesters who chanted, "We won't vote for genocide!" of wanting "Donald Trump to win."
At Drop Site News, Grim wrote that Harris later emphasized, "I am not Joe Biden" and insisted that her presidency "not be a continuation of Joe Biden's presidency" because of her "life experiences, [her] professional experiences, and fresh and new ideas"—but she continued to back the White House's position on the bombardment of Gaza.
"Of course, diverging from Biden on Gaza risked losing voters who supported his policy," wrote Grim. "But a close look at the survey suggests that risk was low compared to the potential reward."
YouGov asked voters who turned out for Harris and had also backed Biden in 2020 whether a shift away from the White House policy on Israel and Gaza would have made them more or less likely to vote for Harris.
"By a 35 to 5 margin, they said doing so would have made them more enthusiastic to vote for her, with the remainder saying it would have made no difference," reported Grim.
Huwaida Arraf, a Palestinian-American who co-founded the International Solidarity Movement, said the "damning new poll" shows that "Israel is a liability."
Grim noted some caveats, pointing out that "even if October 7 and the resulting genocide had never happened, it's fair to assume some number of those non-voters still would not have voted, and would have cited a different top reason for not voting."
"Still, even the most biased poll can only manufacture so much of a response," wrote Grim. "Even if the true numbers aren't as stark as this survey found, it points in a clear direction: Biden's ruthless support for Israel's genocide, and the refusal of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris to break with him, hurt her among voters who stayed home."
The IMEU Policy Project called on the Democratic Party to "come to terms with the real reasons it lost the presidency in November, including because after over a year of unprecedented protests and calls for Biden to stop sending weapons to Israel, party leadership failed to listen to its own voters."
"As the Democratic Party looks for its future leaders in 2028 and beyond," said the organization, "they need to understand that voters they lost in 2024 overwhelmingly say they would prefer to support officials who have opposed sending more weapons to Israel."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Cease-Fire Deal Reportedly Reached After 15 Months of Israeli Atrocities in Gaza
"The cease-fire alone will not end the ongoing genocide that Israel is perpetrating against the Palestinian people in Gaza," said one Palestinian human rights organization.
Jan 15, 2025
This is a developing news story... Please check back for possible updates...
The U.S. and Qatar said Wednesday that negotiators have reached a cease-fire and hostage-release agreement between Israel and Hamas after more than 15 months of incessant Israeli bombing that killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions, and left Gaza in ruins.
At a press conference, Qatar's prime minister said the agreement is set to take effect on Sunday. U.S. President Joe Biden said that "it is long past time for the fighting to end and the work of building peace and security to begin."
Shortly before the formal announcement from the U.S. and Qatar, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that the deal has yet to be cemented.
"Due to the strong insistence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Hamas folded on its last-minute demand to change the deployment of IDF forces in the Philadelphi Corridor," the prime minister's office said, referring to the Israel Defense Forces. "However, several items in the framework have yet to be finalized; we hope that the details will be finalized tonight."
The reported deal, brokered by Egyptian and Qatari mediators, would entail "a six-week initial cease-fire phase and includes the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and release of hostages held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian detainees held by Israel," according toReuters, which cited an unnamed official briefed on the negotiations.
Al Jazeera, also citing anonymous sources, provided an outline of the reported deal:
- The Israeli military will withdraw to within 700 meters (2,297 feet) inside Gaza.
- Israel will release about 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, including 250 serving life sentences.
- Palestinian groups will release 33 Israeli captives.
- Israel will allow injured people in Gaza to travel to receive medical treatment.
- Israel will open the Rafah crossing with Egypt seven days after the start of the first stage.
- Israeli forces will begin to pull back from Gaza's border with Egypt, known as the Philadelphi Corridor, to withdraw from it completely in later stages.
Following news of potentially decisive progress toward a cease-fire, The Associated Pressreported that "large crowds of cheering people" took to the streets in southern Gaza to celebrate. Meanwhile, the outlet noted, hundreds of demonstrators rallied outside of the Israeli military's headquarters in Tel Aviv "calling for a deal to be completed."
Reporting from central Gaza, Al Jazeera's Hani Mahmoud said that "we're seeing people in tears" after news of a possible agreement spread in the besieged enclave.
"We're seeing mothers here, who live in tents near the hospital... hugging and kissing their children, thanking God that they have survived," said Mahmoud.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who voiced support for Israel's catastrophic assault on Gaza during his 2024 campaign, took to his social media platform Wednesday to declare, in all-caps: "WE HAVE A DEAL FOR THE HOSTAGES IN THE MIDDLE EAST. THEY WILL BE RELEASED SHORTLY. THANK YOU!"
Steve Witkoff, the incoming Trump administration's Middle East envoy, joined members of Biden's team in working to finalize the cease-fire agreement, which came as the official death toll from Israel's assault climbed above 46,000—a figure that experts say is likely a significant undercount. The majority of the people killed in Israeli attacks have been women, children, or elderly.
Drop Site's Jeremy Scahill reported Tuesday that "the terms of the deal being negotiated are largely consistent with what was on the table last May when outgoing President Joe Biden first announced it."
"Biden allowed Netanyahu to steamroll him for months—rewarding Israel with billions of dollars in arms transfers and political support after rejecting that cease-fire deal," Scahill wrote. "Since that time, tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians have been killed and maimed and an unknown number of Israeli captives killed, either by their captors or Israeli strikes. All the while, the administration and its backers repeatedly assured voters in the U.S. that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were working tirelessly to achieve a cease-fire deal."
"What is required is for Israel to end all ongoing genocidal acts, open Gaza, and for the international community to ensure accountability for those responsible."
The Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, a Palestinian organization, said the apparent cease-fire agreement marks "a crucial step toward reducing the killing of Palestinians through deadly force."
"However, the cease-fire alone will not end the ongoing genocide that Israel is perpetrating against the Palestinian people in Gaza," the group added. "What is required is for Israel to end all ongoing genocidal acts, open Gaza, and for the international community to ensure accountability for those responsible."
Inger Ashing, CEO of the international humanitarian group Save the Children, said the cease-fire "must be permanent" and accompanied by urgent efforts to "end the siege and vastly increase the entry of aid."
"For 15 months, about 1 million children in Gaza have been caught in a living nightmare with loss, trauma, and risks to their lives at every turn," said Ashing. "If implemented, this pause will bring them vital reprieve from the bombs and bullets that have stalked them for more than a year. But it is not enough and the race is on to save children facing hunger and disease as the shadow of famine looms."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has vocally criticized Israel's response to the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack and U.S. military aid to the Israeli government, said Wednesday that a cease-fire is "long-overdue" and "both sides must honor the deal and implement it as quickly as possible."
"The senseless killing must stop. The hostages must be released," said Sanders. "The United Nations and other aid organizations must finally be allowed unfettered access to all areas of the Gaza Strip in order to provide the massive amounts of humanitarian aid that is desperately needed. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people are struggling to survive, lacking food, water, and medical care in the middle of winter. Innocent lives hang in the balance."
"This is just the first step to restoring peace," the senator added. "The international community must insist that the cease-fire be sustained and formalized. A plan for rebuilding Gaza and establishing peaceful Palestinian governance of the area must be laid out. And there must be accountability for the many war crimes committed by both sides in this terrible conflict."
Keep ReadingShow Less
How US Media Hide Truths About the Gaza War
Despite exceptional coverage at times, what was most profoundly important about war in Gaza—what it was like to be terrorized, massacred, maimed, and traumatized—remained almost entirely out of view.
Jan 15, 2025
A few days before the end of 2024, the independent magazine +972 reported that “Israeli army forces stormed the Kamal Adwan Hospital compound in Beit Lahiya, culminating a nearly week-long siege of the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza.” While fire spread through the hospital, its staff issued a statement saying that “surgical departments, laboratory, maintenance, and emergency units have been completely burned,” and patients were “at risk of dying at any moment.”
The magazine explained that “the assault on medical facilities in Beit Lahiya is the latest escalation in Israel’s brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza, which over the last three months forcibly displaced the vast majority of Palestinians living in the area.” The journalism from +972—in sharp contrast to the dominant coverage of the Gaza war from U.S. media—has provided clarity about real-time events, putting them in overall context rather than episodic snippets.
+972 Magazine is the work of Palestinian and Israeli journalists who describe their core values as “a commitment to equity, justice, and freedom of information”—which necessarily means “accurate and fair journalism that spotlights the people and communities working to oppose occupation and apartheid.” But the operative values of mainstream U.S. news outlets have been very different.
What was sinister about proclaiming “Israel’s 9/11” was what happened after America’s 9/11.
Key aspects of how the U.S. establishment has narrated the “war on terror” for more than two decades were standard in American media and politics from the beginning of the Gaza war in October 2023. For instance:
- Routine discourse avoided voices condemning the U.S. government for its role in the slaughter of civilians.
- The U.S. ally usually eluded accountability for its high-tech atrocities committed from the air.
- Civilian deaths in Gaza were habitually portrayed as unintended.
- Claims that Israel was aiming to minimize civilian casualties were normally taken at face value.
- Media coverage and political rhetoric stayed away from acknowledging that Israel’s actions might fit into such categories as “mass murder” or “terrorism.”
- Overall, news media and U.S. government officials emitted a mindset that Israeli lives really mattered a lot more than Palestinian lives.
The Gaza war has received a vast amount of U.S. media attention, but how much it actually communicated about the human realities was a whole other matter. The belief or unconscious notion that news media were conveying war’s realities ended up obscuring those realities all the more. And journalism’s inherent limitations were compounded by media biases.
During the first five months of the war, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post applied the word “brutal” or its variants far more often to Palestinians (77%) than to Israelis (23%). The findings, in a study by Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), pointed to an imbalance that occurred “even though Israeli violence was responsible for more than 20 times as much loss of life.” News articles and opinion pieces were remarkably in the same groove; “the lopsided rate at which ‘brutal’ was used in op-eds to characterize Palestinians over Israelis was exactly the same as the supposedly straight news stories.”
Despite exceptional coverage at times, what was most profoundly important about war in Gaza—what it was like to be terrorized, massacred, maimed, and traumatized—remained almost entirely out of view. Gradually, surface accounts reaching the American public came to seem repetitious and normal. As death numbers kept rising and months went by, the Gaza war diminished as a news topic, while most talk shows seldom discussed it.
As with the slaughter via bombardment, the Israeli-U.S. alliance treated the increasing onset of starvation, dehydration, and fatal disease as a public-relations problem. Along the way, official pronouncements—and the policies they tried to justify—were deeply anchored in the unspoken premise that some lives really matter and some really don’t.
The propaganda approach was foreshadowed on October 8, 2023, with Israel in shock from the atrocities that Hamas had committed the previous day. “This is Israel’s 9/11,” the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations told reporters in New York, and he repeated: “This is Israel’s 9/11.” Meanwhile, in a PBS News Weekend interview, Israel’s ambassador to the United States declared: “This is, as someone said, our 9/11.”
What was sinister about proclaiming “Israel’s 9/11” was what happened after America’s 9/11. Wearing the cloak of victim, the United States proceeded to use the horrible tragedy that occurred inside its borders as an open-ended reason to kill in the name of retaliation, self-protection, and, of course, the “war on terror.”
As Israel’s war on Gaza persisted, the explanations often echoed the post-9/11 rationales for the “war on terror” from the U.S. government: authorizing future crimes against humanity as necessary in the light of certain prior events. Reverberation was in the air from late 2001, when the Pentagon’s leader Donald Rumsfeld asserted that “responsibility for every single casualty in this war, whether they’re innocent Afghans or innocent Americans, rests at the feet of the al Qaeda and the Taliban.” After five weeks of massacring Palestinian people, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that “any civilian loss is a tragedy”—and quickly added that “the blame should be placed squarely on Hamas.”
The licenses to kill were self-justifying. And they had no expiration date.
This piece was originally published by MediaNorth. It is adapted from the afterword in the paperback edition of Norman Solomon’s latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine (The New Press).
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular