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US Diplomat Who Resigned Over Gaza Condemns Biden Officials Who Defended Genocide—And Now Claim to Regret It
"They actually had the power to stop unconditional arms assistance to Israel," said Hala Rharrit. "They enabled it 100%."
Aug 28, 2026
Recent expressions of regret by top Biden administration officials who vehemently defended the United States' billions of dollars in military aid to Israel as it was bombarding Gaza have not gone far with former diplomat Hala Rharrit, who was retaliated against for speaking out about the US policy before she ultimately resigned, and who condemned her former colleagues recent "PR game" this week.
In an interview with Middle East Eye, Rharrit said the former officials who have mused that they would now support withholding weapons from Israel, or that they should have backed such a move while serving under President Joe Biden, are "just so despicable."
"They're so disgusting," Rharrit said. "Those individuals, particularly [National Security Adviser] Jake Sullivan and a handful of others, actually had the power to save human lives. They actually had the power to stop unconditional arms assistance to Israel, right? The Israelis were not killing the Palestinians by themselves. The Israelis were killing the Palestinians with American bombs, with American jets, with American everything. We enabled it 100%. They enabled it 100%."
"They’re so disgusting."
Former US diplomat Hala Rharrit, who resigned in 2024 over Gaza, responds to the Biden officials who’ve recently claimed they should have done more on Gaza.
Watch early by joining MEE's YouTube membership ➡ https://t.co/kSRg1sVXCo pic.twitter.com/szijxYjczk
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) August 27, 2026
Rharrit, who resigned as the Arabic language spokesperson for the US State Department in April 2024, six months into Israel's US-backed assault—which has been called a genocide by leading human rights organizations and Holocaust experts—spoke to MEE months after former Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US should have called for a ceasefire earlier than it did, "such that the suffering the people endured, the loss of the children, so many others, could have been averted.”
Sullivan last year said—weeks before a ceasefire was finally agreed to—that he'd had a change of heart regarding providing Israel with weapons, and that he would no longer support the policy.
In November, Sullivan added in an interview with The Dartmouth that "it’s fair to say that there were a lot of objections from a lot of parts of the international community about the US continuing to support Israel over the course of last year—2024—and over the course of this year in 2025. I think a lot about what we could have done differently."
Rharrit told MEE that "it's despicable that now they're trying to make themselves look like, 'Oh we should have done better and we're so sorry.'"
The former diplomat emphasized that the apology tour has taken place as it's become increasingly clear that "America has changed" in terms of its views on Israel, Palestine, and the United States' decadeslong, unconditional support for the Israeli military—despite US statutes like the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and Leahy Laws, which bar the government from providing military aid to countries that block humanitarian assistance and that are accused of human rights abuses.
A poll released this week showed that large majorities of Democratic voters in the first six states that will vote in the 2028 presidential primaries support cutting off weapons aid to Israel, and another survey by Hart Research Associates and Public Opinion Strategies in March found that just 32% of Americans viewed Israel positively, compared with 47% in 2023.
"America is forever changed," said Rharrit. "Americans no longer support these forever wars, they no longer support unconditional arms assistance to Israel. They no longer agree with US policy in the Middle East. And so now... they're doing a PR game. This is just pure PR."
Rharrit and other officials who resigned over the US policy on Israel and Gaza "were vindicated," she said. "Of course we were right the whole time, because it's international law. It's US law. I abided by my oath to the Constitution... That is exactly what I did. That is exactly why I resigned."
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, said Rharrit is one of "a rare breed" of diplomats.
"During this genocide I've met courageous diplomats and officials who denounced it at real personal cost," said Albanese, whom the Trump administration targeted with sanctions earlier this year. "Imagine foreign policy built by more of them. Because the problem is never one unfit minister/head of state: It's whole spineless cohorts around them."
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In First 6 Democratic Primary States for 2028, Overwhelming Majorities Demand Weapons Embargo on Israel
"Across the first six states set to vote in the 2028 Democratic presidential primaries, virtually no likely Democratic voters say Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza," noted Drop Site News.
Aug 25, 2026
When the Democratic National Committee selected South Carolina this month as the "first in the nation" state for the 2028 presidential primaries, political journalists and commentators suggested the calendar could give the southern state's moderate voter base a new level of influence in selecting the party's candidate.
But new polling from the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) Policy Project and YouGov on Tuesday showed that on an issue the party and media establishment continue to dismiss as "extreme," overwhelming majorities of voters in the first states that will hold primaries in 2028 agree: The party must elect a presidential candidate who supports ending military aid to Israel.
The IMEU Policy Project and YouGov surveyed 4,000 likely Democratic primary voters across the six states that will vote first in 2028—South Carolina, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Michigan, and Virginia—and found an undeniable trend.
"Democrats in the first six states to vote in the 2028 presidential primary overwhelmingly demand sanctions and a total weapons embargo against Israel," said the IMEU Policy Project.
South Carolina and Virginia, which have typically favored more moderate candidates, showed somewhat less support for a weapons embargo on Israel, which, with US backing, has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians in Gaza over the past three years and continues to attack the largely decimated exclave despite a ceasefire deal.
But even the two southern states showed strong support for a dramatic shift in the United States' relationship with Israel, which it provides with nearly $4 billion in military aid annually, in addition to at least $16.3 billion in direct military assistance since it began attacking Gaza in 2023.
Nearly two-thirds of Democratic voters in both South Carolina and Virginia said they would prefer a 2028 presidential candidate who supports cutting off weapons to Israel. Fifty-seven percent of respondents in the former state said they believed Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza, as well as 72% of Virginians.
Drop Site News noted that across the six states, regarding the genocide question, "the 'no' response never rises about 5%."
Prem Thakker of Zeteo News emphasized that the polling was released as "the party was hoping South Carolina would be the moderate saving grace" in the 2028 presidential election, in which a large field of candidates is expected to run.
Potential contenders include Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), a progressive who's committed to opposing all military aid for Israel; former Vice President Kamala Harris, who refused to commit to an arms embargo during her unsuccessful 2024 campaign; California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who said in May that the US should reconsider weapons aid to Israel; and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who said he would support a weapons embargo last year only after facing backlash over comments in which he called the issue "complicated."
Buttigieg visited South Carolina over the weekend, as have several other possible candidates, including Newsom and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), a top recipient of donations from the pro-Israel lobby.
The other states polled by IMEU and YouGov also showed high levels of support for cutting off weapons to Israel and sanctioning its right-wing government, which faces elections in October.
Seventy-eight percent of Nevada voters said they view Israel's US-backed bombardment of Gaza as a genocide, and 74% said the US should end weapons aid.
Three-quarters of voters in New Hampshire, Michigan, and New Mexico said the US should stop providing Israel with weapons. Michigan was home to the largest share of voters who viewed the attacks on Gaza as a genocide—80%—and in both New Hampshire and New Mexico, 70% of voters said the US should sanction Israel.
Left-wing commentator Hasan Piker, whom centrist Democrats, think tanks, and commentators have attacked in recent months for his past comments on September 11 and Hamas, and whom critics have said should be shunned by progressive political campaigns, said the new polling illustrated an inescapable reality for the Democratic Party.
"This is why I said the '28 Democratic nominee will not be pro-Israel," said Piker of the new survey. "Even if I go away, this problem doesn’t."
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Hakeem Jeffries Rebuked for Opposing Amendment to End US Military Aid to Israel
"Why does Democratic leadership continue to oppose a measure supported by 74% of Democratic voters?" asked one commentator.
Jul 14, 2026
With a key amendment to a 2027 spending bill expected to come up for a vote in the US House of Representatives in the coming days, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries had what one organizer called "a real opportunity... to show he's listening" to the Democratic Party's base and its growing disapproval of US military aid for Israel.
But on Tuesday, progressive advocates said Jeffries (D-NY) had squandered that opportunity by announcing in a Dear Colleague letter that he would oppose the amendment put forward by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), which would eliminate the $3.3 billion the US provides to Israel's military annually.
Last month, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)—who was detained by armed Israeli settlers in the West Bank this week—urged his colleagues to back the amendment, calling US support for Israel "the moral test of our time" as he stood in front of a memorial for 20,000 children killed by the Israeli military in Gaza.
In the letter and at a caucus meeting Tuesday morning, Jeffries claimed the amendment was "overly broad" and could limit funds for humanitarian aid, refugee resettlement, and other operations.
He also asserted that the funding cut would restrict the United States' ability to "confront Hamas."
The US government, under both the Biden and Trump administrations, has relentlessly claimed that Israel's US-backed assault on Gaza that began in 2023 has targeted Hamas, even as refugee camps, schools, hospitals, residential buildings, aid workers, and children have been targeted by the Israel Defense Forces and as Israel has concurrently ramped up violent efforts to annex the West Bank.
A ceasefire in Gaza was reached in October 2025, but more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since the deal was signed. In all, more than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed.
As the US has continued to give material and political support to Israel, approval of the military aid and the Israeli government has plummeted among the American public.
More than half of Democratic voters said in an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll last week that they believed the US-backed military operation amounted to a genocide.
A Quinnipiac University poll found last August that three-quarters of Democratic voters and 60% of all voters supported suspending US weapons aid to Israel.
A number of progressive Democratic challengers, including Melat Kiros in Colorado, Chris Rabb in Pennsylvania, and Adam Hamawy in New Jersey, have also decisively won primary races in recent months after campaigning on a suspension of US military aid to Israel, noted Usamah Andrabi, communications director for Justice Democrats.
In the corporate press, the issue at hand was described as one that has "sharply divided" Democrats in recent weeks—a characterization that Adam Johnson of the podcast "Citations Needed" vehemently rejected.
"This issue is very much not 'dividing' the party writ large," said Johnson. "Support for cutting aid to Israel among Dems is 74-20. Only 13% of Democrats have a positive view of Israel—less than the percentage of Democrats who support full abortion bans."
The "divide," said Johnson, is between voters and the party leadership, particularly Democrats who—like Jeffries—have taken millions of dollars from the pro-Israel lobby.
"Why does Democratic leadership continue to oppose a measure supported by 74% of Democratic voters?" asked Johnson. "Where are all the popularism pundits decrying the Democrats' out-of-touch leadership, ignoring a broadly popular position, one also supported by the majority of independents?"
Jeffries said in the Dear Colleague letter that his opposition to the amendment was "consistent" with that of "pro-peace organizations like J Street."
J Street, which describes itself as a "pro-peace" and "liberal Zionist" group, expressed opposition to the amendment, but said it would also "support those members who vote yes to signal their opposition to unconditional [foreign military financing] and support for stronger oversight of how US security assistance is used."
Erik Sperling, executive director of the progressive think tank Just Foreign Policy, said J Street's "hedging" on the amendment was "a moral stain" for the organization.
"Genuine pro-peace groups cannot allow billions in US taxpayer money to be sent to [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu's Israel now," said Sperling.
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‘No More Military Aid for Netanyahu,’ Says Sanders as Israel Ramps Up West Bank Takeover
"It’s not just Gaza," the senator said. "Netanyahu’s extremist government is supporting the violent annexation of Palestinian land in the West Bank."
Dec 22, 2025
As Israeli settlers escalate attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank as part of a furious state-backed annexation push, US Sen. Bernie Sanders said it was yet another reason to suspend military aid to the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"It’s not just Gaza," the independent Vermont senator wrote on social media Sunday. "Netanyahu’s extremist government is supporting the violent annexation of Palestinian land in the West Bank. This is illegal and immoral, and decades of American silence have enabled it."
"NO MORE MILITARY AID FOR NETANYAHU," he concluded.
Sanders was responding to a feature published in the New York Times that same day, which examined the rapid expansion of illegal settler outposts over the past two decades, and the further acceleration after October 7, 2023, when Israel’s more than two-year genocidal assault began in Gaza following a Hamas-led attack.
The report provides data from the Israeli activist group Peace Now, which found that in 2024 and 2025, Israelis built more than 130 new outposts in the West Bank.
Despite the fact that they are illegal under both Israeli and international law, the settlers constructing these outposts operate with the support of the Israeli military and government.
As the Times reports:
The unrelenting violent campaign by these settlers, that critics say is largely tolerated by the Israeli military, consists of brutal harassment, beatings, even killings, as well as high-impact roadblocks and village closures. These are coupled with a drastic increase in land seizures by the state and the demolition of villages to force Palestinians to abandon their land.
Many of the settlers are young extremists whose views go beyond even the far-right ideology of the government. They are not generally operating on direct orders from Israel’s military leadership. But they know the military frequently looks the other way and facilitates their actions.
In many cases, it is the military that forces Palestinians to evacuate or orders the destruction of their homes once settlers drive them to flee.
Just in 2025, the report says, settlers and the military have razed more than 1,500 Palestinian structures, double the annual average from before 2023. Since the war began, more than 4,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from their homes.
Meanwhile, the Israeli government has also declared a record number of areas in the West Bank to be "state land," meaning that they are off limits to Palestinians and that Israelis can use them to build more settlements.
Far-right forces in the Israeli government have been overt about the intention of these settlements: to carve up the West Bank so thoroughly that a contiguous Palestinian state becomes effectively impossible. Netanyahu has often reiterated his position that under his watch, a Palestinian state will never be created.
In August, as the Israeli government approved a massive 3,400-home settlement project in the heart of the occupied West Bank, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—himself a settler and one of the leading representatives of the far-right settler movement in Netanyahu’s cabinet—boasted that the project “buries the idea of a Palestinian state,” adding that “Every town, every neighborhood, every housing unit... is another nail in the coffin of this dangerous idea.”
On Sunday, Israel’s cabinet approved another 19 Jewish-only settlements across the West Bank, raising the total number to more than 200 in the territory, up from around 140 three years ago. Smotrich said with the new construction, Israel was “putting the brakes on the rise of a Palestinian terror state.”Until recently, the official policy of the US government has been one of opposition to settlements, even as their construction continued largely unimpeded.
During his second term, President Donald Trump has talked out of both sides of his mouth. While promising Arab leaders that Israel would not annex the West Bank as he sought to broker a ceasefire, his administration has often expressed tacit, and occasionally overt, support for settlement expansion.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres denounced the rapid expansion of settlements, saying it “continues to fuel tensions, impede access by Palestinians to their land, and threaten the viability of a fully independent, democratic, contiguous, and sovereign Palestinian state.”
In July, as reports of famine out of Gaza grew increasingly dire due to Israel's blockade of humanitarian aid, Sanders sponsored a Senate resolution to block $675 million in US weapons sales to Israel.
Though the vote was far from passing, 27 members of the Democratic caucus—a majority, for the first time—voted in favor. Sanders said it suggested that "the tide is turning" with respect to attitudes towards Israel's actions within the party.
In an AtlasIntel poll published on Friday, 62% of respondents said they opposed US financial support for Israel, compared with 20% who supported it. 50% of respondents said they "totally oppose" weapons to Israel, while just 9% said they "totally support" it.
Despite this, the most recent military spending bill, passed last week, provides another $650 million in military aid for Israel, up $45 million from the previous package, despite the implementation of a ceasefire in Gaza.
The bill also included an unprecedented measure requiring the executive branch to assess how the US can supply additional weapons to Israel to fill in "gaps" from embargoes imposed by other nations over the country's human rights abuses in Gaza and the West Bank.
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Lancet Study Shows Over 3 Million Years of Human Life Lost in Israeli Assault on Gaza
"To speak of 3 million years of human life erased is to confront the true scale of this atrocity—generations of children, parents, and families wiped out," said the head of a US advocacy group.
Nov 03, 2025
As Israeli forces continued to violate a fragile ceasefire agreement with Hamas, killing more people in the Gaza Strip on Monday, the largest Muslim civil rights group in the United States renewed calls for cutting off military aid to Israel, citing a new study in The Lancet.
"This new Lancet study offers more evidence of the catastrophic human cost of Israel's genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people," Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) national executive director Nihad Awad said in a statement.
The correspondence published Friday by the famed British medical journal was submitted by Colorado State University professor Sammy Zahran, an expert in health economics, and Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a British Palestinian surgeon teaching at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon.
Zahran and Abu-Sittah provided an estimate of the number of years of life lost, based on an official death toll list published by the Gaza Ministry of Health at the end of July, which included the age and sex of 60,199 Palestinians. They noted that the list is "restricted to deaths linked explicitly to actions by the Israeli military, excluding indirect deaths resulting from the ruin of infrastructure and medical facilities, restriction of food and water, and the loss of medical personnel that support life."
The pair calculated life expectancies in the state of Palestine—Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem—by sex for all ages, using mortality and population data from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs for 2022. They estimated that a total of 3,082,363 life-years were lost in Gaza as a result of the Israeli assault since October 7, 2023.
"We find that most life-years lost are among civilians, even under the relaxed definition of a supposed combatant involving all men and boys of possible conscription age (15–44 years)," the paper states. "More than 1 million life-years involving children under the age of 15 years... have been lost."
CAIR's Awad said, "To speak of 3 million years of human life erased is to confront the true scale of this atrocity—generations of children, parents, and families wiped out. It is a deliberate effort to destroy a people."
Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice over its conduct in Gaza, and the International Criminal Court last year issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
"The United States and the international community must end their complicity by halting all military aid to Israel and supporting full accountability for these crimes under international law," Awad argued.
A report published last month by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and the Costs of War Project at Brown University found that the Biden and Trump administrations provided at least $21.7 billion in military aid to Israel since the start of the war.
Federal law prohibits the US government from providing security assistance to foreign military units credibly accused of human rights abuses. The Washington Post last week reported on a classified State Department document detailing "many hundreds" of alleged violations by Israeli forces in Gaza that are expected to take "multiple years" to review.
With President Donald Trump seeking a Nobel Peace Prize, the US helped negotiate the current ceasefire, which began on October 10, after over two years of devastating retaliation for the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel. The head of Gaza's Government Media Office said Monday that Israeli forces have committed at least 194 violations of the agreement.
As of Sunday, the ministry's death count was at 68,865, with at least 170,670 people wounded. Previously published research, including multiple studies in The Lancet, has concluded that the official tally is likely a significant undercount.
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Prominent Jewish Figures Call On World Leaders to 'Refuse' Complicity in Israeli Crimes in Gaza, West Bank
The United Nations and member states must "use relevant leverage, including targeted sanctions on governmental bodies and individuals responsible for violations of international law," reads a new letter.
Oct 22, 2025
With the Palestinian news agency in Gaza reporting that Israel has violated the 12-day-old ceasefire agreement with Hamas at least 80 times and killed at least 80 people in the exclave, more than 460 prominent Jewish artists, writers, rights advocates, and policymakers on Wednesday called on world leaders—including at the United Nations—to intensify the international pressure that helped push Israel to sign the fragile truce deal.
"It was international pressure that helped to secure this ceasefire, and it must be sustained to guarantee that it endures," reads a letter organized by Jews Demand Action. "The ceasefire must be the beginning, not the end. The risk of reverting to a political reality of indifference to occupation and permanent conflict is too great. This same pressure must be continued to deliver a new era of peace and justice for all—Palestinians and Israelis alike."
The letter was initiated by former Israeli Knesset Member Avrum Burg, former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy, Israeli-American activist Libby Lenkinski, Belgian former Member of European Parliament Simone Susskind, US columnist and journalist Peter Beinart, and UK activist Em Hilton.
The signatories said that they "deplore the fact that Israeli leaders have repeatedly taken to the world stage to declare" that their bombardment of Gaza—which has killed more than 68,000 Palestinians and decimated nearly all housing units across the exclave along with hospitals, schools, and other civilian infrastructure—has been "committed in the name of the Jewish people."
"As Jews and as human beings, we declare: Not in our name," reads the letter, which was also signed by actor and writer Wallace Shawn, British filmmaker Jonathan Glazer, Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, and actor Hannah Einbinder. "Not in the name of our heritage, our faith, or our moral tradition. The monumental scale of the killing and destruction, the forced displacement, the deliberate withholding of life-sustaining necessities, and the ongoing criminal actions in the West Bank must end and never be repeated."
"It is time to do everything possible to definitively end the Israeli government’s collective punishment of the Palestinians and to pursue peace for the sake of both peoples."
Among the letter's demands is one calling on UN Secretary-General António Guterres and other world leaders to "refute false accusations of antisemitism that abusively deploy our collective history to tarnish those with whom we stand together in the pursuit of peace and justice."
Calls to destroy Palestinian life "are not Jewish values nor are they guided by the lessons we draw from our peoples’ history," they wrote. "Instead we see in many of those standing up for Palestinian rights a reflection of the people who stood with Jews in our times of need. Our solidarity with Palestinians is not a betrayal of Judaism, then, but a fulfillment of it. When our sages taught that to destroy one life is to destroy an entire world, they did not carve exceptions for Palestinians."
The group called on other Jewish people to sign the letter.
The letter notes that the ceasefire signed on October 10 "makes no reference to the West Bank," where more than 3,200 Palestinians have been injured in attacks, including by Israeli settlers, this year. Israeli leaders have promoted the creation of the E1 settlement, which would cut off East Jerusalem from the rest of the illegally occupied territory and make it impossible for Palestinians to establish a state with the city as its capital.
Masked settlers in recent days attacked Palestinians civilians who were harvesting olives in the town of Turmus Ayya, with one clubbing a 55-year-old woman named Umm Saleh Abu Alia, who had to be hospitalized.
The letter was addressed to Guterres and other world leaders and representatives of UN member states as the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel must provide for the "basic needs" of Palestinians in Gaza and allow aid into the exclave. In 2024 the ICJ issued a nonbinding opinion saying the occupation was illegal—in keeping with long-established international law—and calling on settlers to leave the West Bank.
The signatories affirmed their "belief in the universality of justice and the fair and equal application of international law," writing: "We have not forgotten that so many of the laws, charters, and conventions established to safeguard and protect all human life were created in response to the Holocaust. Those safeguards have been relentlessly violated by Israel."
"Accountability for the Israeli leadership’s grievous violations of international law is necessary," they wrote. "It is time to do everything possible to definitively end the Israeli government’s collective punishment of the Palestinians and to pursue peace for the sake of both peoples."
The European Union's foreign ministers paused sanctions against Israel in response to the ceasefire agreement, a decision that was criticized by rights advocates this week.
"That is the last thing that we should be doing, because this is exactly the moment when you need to keep the pressure on. Because we all know that it’s certainly not a foregone conclusion that this plan will be implemented," Nathalie Tocci, a former adviser to two EU foreign policy officials, told The Guardian. “I fear that... European governments and institutions will be... reverting back to the sort of old, familiar patterns."
The letter sent on Wednesday called on the UN and member states to:
- Respect and abide by the decisions of the International Court of Justice, apply arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court, and resist efforts to unduly pressure and influence and prevent the workings of both courts;
- To refuse any complicity in continued crimes and violations of international law against Palestinians by Israel, including by ending the provision of arms and other relevant goods and services, and to use relevant leverage, including targeted sanctions on governmental bodies and individuals responsible for violations of international law; and
- To ensure that humanitarian assistance reaches all Palestinians in Gaza at the scale that is commensurate to their vital need, that the blockade is lifted and materials for reconstruction enter, and that there is a full Israeli military withdrawal.
Al Jazeera reported on Wednesday that Palestinians in Gaza "are still going hungry" despite the ceasefire. In August, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) declared famine in parts of the exclave, and more than 450 people have starved to death as a result of the near-total blockade Israel began imposing in October 2023.
There is now only one entry point open for aid trucks at the Karem Abu Salem crossing, reported Al Jazeera.
"When it comes to the northern part of Gaza, none of the crossings have been opened. For more than 50 days now, the Israeli military has imposed a complete blockade on these crossings, and none of the trucks are coming to this area," wrote Hani Mahmoud, a correspondent in Gaza City. "It continues to be very difficult for people here, particularly those returning to their homes in Gaza City and the northern areas. Apart from the fact that they are lacking access to water, there’s no access to proper food.
"Whatever is available is from business owners, the traders, who have been given permits from the Israeli military to get commercial items into the Gaza Strip," Mahmoud reported. "Despite the illusion that aid is 'pouring' into Gaza, the reality on the ground is different, and people are still going hungry, unable to access food and water."
Levy said that "Israel's actions against Palestinians are antithetical to the Jewish heritage we hold dear."
"We must end this shame and reclaim a better future for Jews and Palestinians alike," he said. "We are calling on world leaders to reject complicity in the status quo of occupation, apartheid, and Israel's genocidal doom-loop towards the Palestinians, and ensure respect for international law and an end to impunity. That is the only path towards hope and sustainable peace.”
The signatories added that despite the ceasefire, they "shall not rest" until the agreement "carries forward into an end of occupation and apartheid."
"We write in the hope that this initiative further emboldens a moment of renewed Jewish commitment to act with conscience and compassion," they wrote. "We vow to work urgently to achieve equality, justice, and freedom for Palestinians and Israelis."
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Israel's Destruction of Gaza Over Last 2 Years 'Would Not Have Been Possible' Without $21.7 Billion From US
“Our research highlights numbers, but we must never lose sight of this key fact: What we’re talking about is human suffering."
Oct 07, 2025
Tuesday marked two years since the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that killed more than 1,100 people and provoked the Israeli military's slaughter of over 67,000 Palestinians in Gaza, and a new report provides an accounting of the United States' support for the latter—support that made possible the mass destruction and killing that Israel continues to carry out across Gaza, as one analyst said.
"The devastating damage the current Israeli government has done to Gaza and its people would not have been possible without US financing, US-supplied weapons, and US assistance with spare parts and maintenance,” said Bill Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and author of a new report published by the organization along with the Costs of War Project at Brown University.
The report—published alongside another analysis that details the human toll of Israel's US-backed bombardment of Gaza—finds that the Biden and Trump administrations provided at least $21.7 billion in military aid to Israel since the start of the war on October 7, 2023.
Over the same period, the US has also spent at least $9.65 billion on military operations in Yemen, Iran, and the wider region.
In the first year of the war, when President Joe Biden was in office, the US provided $17.9 billion. Another $3.8 billion has been sent to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) since October 2024. Some of the military aid that's been allocated to Israel is set to be supplied in the coming years.
The Costs of War Project emphasized that there are also billions of dollars in arms sales agreements that are set to be paid for in the years to come and are not included in the figure.
The Biden and Trump administrations have financed the IDF even as Israeli officials have spelled out their intention of killing civilians as well as Hamas combatants—and as Israeli soldiers have said they've been directed to target civilians. Their funding of Israel's military has also been in violation of US laws including Section 6201 of the Foreign Assistance Act, which prohibits the US from transferring weapons or military aid to countries that block humanitarian assistance, as Israel has done since October 2023.
As the US has sent more than $8 billion in military financing, $725 million in "offshore procurement" to support Israel's own arms industry, $4.4 billion in weapons, $801 million in ammunition procurement, and more to the IDF, the near-total blockade on humanitarian aid had pushed Gaza into a famine.
More than half a million people in the Gaza Strip were facing "catastrophic conditions characterized by starvation, destitution, and death" in August when the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification declared that famine had taken hold in the exclave.
"Without U.S. support, the Israeli government would have no combat aircraft to drop bombs and many fewer bombs."
At least 453 people, including 150 children have starved to death in Gaza since Israel first began blocking humanitarian aid, with many dying in recent weeks.
At least 67,173 Palestinians have also been killed and 169,780 have been injured, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, which does not distinguish between militants and civilians. Out of the approximately 2.2 million people who were living in Gaza in July 2023, more than 10% have either been killed or injured. The Costs of War Project said that while some supporters in Israel have claimed the Ministry of Health's numbers are an "exaggeration"—including Biden in the first weeks of the war—"they are likely an undercount."
Another report released Tuesday by Neta Crawford, co-founder and strategic adviser at the Costs of War Project, detailed The Human Toll of the Gaza War, including:
- 1,048 people who have been killed and 10,320 people who have been injured by "direct violence" in the West Bank;
- The forced displacement of approximately 90% of Gaza's population;
- The killing of at least 554 aid workers;
- The killing of 248 journalists, according to the United Nations Human Rights Office;
- Bombings of hospitals such as Nasser Hospital, the only remaining healthcare center in southern Gaza, where 20 people including five journalists were killed on August 25;
- The killing of more than 18,000 children under the age of 18;
- The destruction of 90% of housing units and at least 78% of all buildings and structures;
- The creation of the world's "largest orphan crisis," with at least 39,000 children having lost one or both parents; and
- The creation of the world's largest population of child amputees, with many having lost limbs and had surgeries "without even anesthesia," as UN Secretary-General António Guterres said earlier this year.
"For well over a decade, the Costs of War Project has shed light on the costs of the so-called US 'War on Terror'; now we’re examining the devastating costs of US military spending and operations in the post-October 7 wars—which in the case of Gaza, many experts call a genocide,” said Stephanie Savell, director of the Costs of War Project. “Our research highlights numbers, but we must never lose sight of this key fact: What we’re talking about is human suffering. This research shows that the suffering is unthinkably vast."
Savell said the group's aim is for its research to "inform efforts to stop the mass killing and displacement, move beyond the war paradigm, and explore true solutions towards peace.”
The reports were released as Hamas and Israel began the latest indirect peace talks in Egypt, with US representatives expected to join the negotiations in the coming hours. Hamas and Israel have both expressed willingness to move forward with the release of Israelis and Palestinians who have been held captive and imprisoned, a key point in a peace plan proposed by President Donald Trump last week. Since the plan was announced and Trump called on Israel to halt its bombing of Gaza, the IDF has continued attacking parts of the exclave, killing at least 104 people.
Despite Israel's dependence on the US for military aid, said Hartung, since October 2023, "neither former President Joe Biden nor current President Donald Trump have used Israel's reliance on US weapons as a tool to pressure Tel Aviv to change its conduct.”
To be effective, said the report released Tuesday, "any U.S. government effort to impede Israel’s military operations in Gaza and beyond must include a ban on new sales, a suspension of arms in the pipeline that have been committed but are yet to be delivered, and a cut off of spare parts and support for the maintenance of Israeli weapons systems already in use."
"Without U.S. support, the Israeli government would have no combat aircraft to drop bombs and many fewer bombs," the report reads. "An increasing share of Israel’s arsenal would be down for maintenance without US government or US contractor mechanics and spare parts. In addition, Israel’s government could not have built a military of its current size and sophistication without US financial backing."
"Thus far," it adds, "the US government has not acted to stop the killing by cutting off military aid."
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Clear Majority of US Voters, Including 3 in 4 Democrats, Want to End Weapons Support to Israel: Poll
"Democratic politicians who continue to support sending weapons to Israel are acting in direct defiance of their own constituents' wishes," said one progressive commentator.
Aug 28, 2025
As its genocidal actions in Gaza become more brazen by the day, support for Israel among Americans has reached a record low.
According to a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday, 60% of voters across all parties now say they oppose the United States sending more military aid to Israel, while just 32% say they support it. The pollster said it was the greatest amount of opposition it has recorded for the US-Israel alliance since it first asked the question in November 2023.
Opposition is even stronger among Democratic voters: 75% of them now oppose sending military aid to Israel, compared with just 18% who still support it.
Also for the first time ever in a Quinnipiac poll, more voters, 37%, said they sympathized with the Palestinians—an all-time high—compared with just 36% who said they sympathized with the Israelis—an all-time low.
In recent months, Israeli politicians have begun moving forward with a plan to fully occupy the Gaza Strip and permanently empty it of its inhabitants, which international humanitarian organizations have described as an "ethnic cleansing."
On Wednesday, every member of the United Nations Security Council, with the exception of the United States, joined in a statement backing the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification's declaration that Israel was creating a "man-made" famine in Gaza.
Meanwhile, even Israel's leaders have found it impossible to defend its "double-tap" strike on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on Monday, in which the Israel Defense Forces launched a strike on the medical facility before launching another attack shortly afterward on the journalists and medical personnel who came to respond to the destruction.
That attack killed at least 20 people, adding to the potentially well over 100,000 Palestinians who experts estimate have been killed over the course of the nearly two-year military onslaught.
According to the Quinnipiac poll, 50% of Americans now agree with the international community's assessment that Israel is perpetrating a genocide in Gaza. This includes 77% of Democrats and 51% of independents.
When Democrats were polled last month by Gallup, just 8% of them said they supported Israel's military actions in the Gaza Strip, a dramatic decline from October 2023, when 36% expressed support.
In recent weeks, as the images of death and starvation coming out of Gaza have grown increasingly heinous and ubiquitous, some Democratic politicians have begun to take a harsher stance against Israel.
Last month, a majority of Democrats in the Senate, for the first time, voted in favor of resolutions introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to suspend US assault weapons and 1,000-pound bombs to Israel.
Twenty-seven Democrats voted for the resolution halting assault rifles, and 24 voted for the resolution to stop the sale of bombs. Notably, the top Senate Democrat, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), voted against both resolutions.
Despite overwhelming support from their voters, the Democratic National Committee on Tuesday voted down a resolution calling for the US to suspend military aid to Israel.
"Democratic politicians who continue to support sending weapons to Israel are acting in direct defiance of their own constituents' wishes," said Nathan J. Robinson, the editor-in-chief of Current Affairs Magazine, in response to news of the latest polling numbers.
Previous polls have indicated that opposition to former President Joe Biden's arming of Israel was a primary reason why Democratic voters chose to abandon the Democratic Party in 2024, potentially costing then-Vice President Kamala Harris the election.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) said the poll showed that "Democrats continuing to ignore their base on the Palestine issue is insane," adding that if they continue down this path, "they will continue to lose."
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Democrats: Say No to Endless Killing in Ukraine and Give Peace a Chance
While some hawks still pretend that Ukraine could "win" the war with enough missiles, bombs, ammunition, and other supplies from the U.S., realists scoff at such claims.
Aug 10, 2025
After three and a half years of carnage in Ukraine, the meeting expected soon between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin is an opportunity to finally find a peaceful solution to a terrible war. Genuine diplomacy to end the bloodshed is long overdue.
Up to 100,000 Ukrainians are estimated to have been killed, many of them civilians, along with more than twice that number of deaths among Russian troops. Hundreds of thousands more have been wounded on each side, and Russian bombardment has devastated many of Ukraine’s cities and towns.
Condemnations of the Trump-Putin summit are predictable from congressional Democrats more interested in scoring political points than opening a diplomatic door for peace. While most Republican leaders will praise Trump no matter what he does, pressure from the so-called national security establishment could damage prospects for a peaceful outcome in Ukraine.
Since early 2022, the U.S. government, on a largely bipartisan basis, has provided upwards of $67 billion in military aid to Ukraine. Supporters of continuing the massive arming of Ukraine claim the highest moral ground, while others do the killing and dying. Even after it became clear that the war could go on indefinitely without any winner, the message from Washington’s elite politicians and pundits to the Ukrainian people has amounted to “let’s you and them fight.”
Last week, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) introduced a bill to give Ukraine $54.6 billion in aid over the next two years, with many billions going directly to arm the Ukrainian military. If the Trump-Putin summit is unsuccessful, the currently dim prospects for such legislation could brighten. This dynamic gives war enthusiasts and advocates for the military-industrial complex a motive to throw cold water on the summit.
While Murkowski now represents a minority view on Ukraine among fellow Republicans, Shaheen is decidedly in the mainstream of her Senate Democratic colleagues. Even after all the suffering and destruction in Ukraine, few seem really interested in giving peace a chance.
As for Trump, he has sometimes talked about seeking peace in Ukraine, even while greenlighting large quantities of weapons to the Kiev government. Given his mercurial approach, there is no telling what his mindset will be after meeting with Putin.
Most Democrats in Congress seem content with continuation of a war that has no end in sight. Little is being accomplished in military terms other than more killing, maiming and destruction.
During recent months, Ukrainian forces have lost ground to Russian troops. While some hawks still pretend that Ukraine could “win” the war with enough missiles, bombs, ammunition and other supplies from the U.S., realists scoff at such claims.
Unfortunately, while the war drags on, Democrats in Congress are prone to treat diplomacy as a third rail. To a large extent, their partisan template was reinforced nearly three years ago, making “diplomacy” a dirty word for the Ukraine war.
The fiasco began in late October 2022 with the release of a letter to President Biden signed by 30 House Democrats, led by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The letter was judicious in its tone and content, affirming support for Ukraine and appropriately condemning “Russia’s war of aggression.” But the signatories got in instant hot water because the letter balanced its support for arming Ukraine with sensibly urging steps that could stop a war without a foreseeable end.
“Given the destruction created by this war for Ukraine and the world, as well as the risk of catastrophic escalation, we also believe it is in the interests of Ukraine, the United States, and the world to avoid a prolonged conflict,” the letter stated. “For this reason, we urge you to pair the military and economic support the United States has provided to Ukraine with a proactive diplomatic push, redoubling efforts to seek a realistic framework for a ceasefire.”
Just one day later, Jayapal issued a statement declaring that “the Congressional Progressive Caucus hereby withdraws its recent letter to the White House regarding Ukraine.” For some members of the caucus, the sudden withdrawal was a jarring and embarrassing retreat from a stance for diplomacy.
Ever since then, the war train has continued to roll, unimpeded by cooler heads. And, like elected officials in Washington, voters are looking at the war through partisan lenses.
A March Gallup poll found that 79 percent of Democrats said that the U.S. was not doing enough to help Ukraine — a steep jump from 48 percent since the end of last year. During the same period, the number of surveyed Republicans with that view remained under 15 percent.
It is time for Americans and their elected representatives to set aside partisan lenses and see what’s really at stake with the Ukraine war. Endless killing is no solution at all.
Rebuilding détente between Washington and Moscow is essential — not only for the sake of Ukrainians and Russians who keep dying, but also for the entire world. The two nuclear superpowers must engage in dialogue and real diplomacy if the next generations all over the globe are to survive.
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Narrowing the Democratic Divide on Gaza
Why the historic vote on blocking weapons to Israel matters for progressive politics and the fight against Trump.
Aug 01, 2025
Wednesday’s Senate votes on Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Joint Resolutions of Disapproval (JRDs) that would have blocked specific weapons transfers to Israel crystallized two critical realities within the Democratic Party as well as within the progressive movement more broadly. On one hand, 27 Senators, a majority of Democratic caucus, listened to their consciences and made a historic break with decades of unquestioned U.S. military aid to Israel. On the other hand, a substantial contingent of Democratic senators—some from states with progressive reputations and others who are self-styled progressive leaders—joined every single Republican senator in refusing to challenge the influential pro-Israel lobby.
The bipartisan consensus supporting unquestioned military aid to Israel had so far withheld a real reckoning as Gaza’s civilian population faces staggering devastation—bombed hospitals, restricted humanitarian access, and mounting numbers of civilians killed. Meanwhile, those realities in Gaza have caused a sea change with the Democratic Party’s increasingly justice-minded rank and file.
A Gallup poll from just this month found that a paltry 8% of Democratic voters approve of Israel’s military actions in Gaza, down sharply from 24% in late 2024, reflecting unprecedented disapproval amid mounting civilian casualties and humanitarian suffering. This collapse in support highlights a widening chasm between those Democratic leaders who continue to back unconditional military aid and the overwhelming majority of their base. This stark divide weakens the party as it tries to oppose U.S. President Donald Trump in D.C. and as it heads into upcoming elections.
How can Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) lead the Democratic Party against Trumpism if he sides with Bibi Netanyahu’s worst authoritarian instincts instead of with Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and the fight for human rights? How can someone like Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) give anti-authoritarian speeches about fighting “for the moral soul of the nation” while he votes to keep the U.S. complicit in starving a people and other war crimes? How can Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) claim to truly represent voters in progressive states like New York and California when they side with the Israel lobby over 90% of their base voters?
To present a robust counterweight to Trump’s authoritarianism, Democrats must articulate a fundamentally different vision—one that rejects complicity in violence abroad and centers human rights as a cornerstone of both its domestic and foreign policy.
As the atrocities in Gaza mount each day, the costs of listening to lobbying groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and aligned hardline organizations are growing. These groups leverage extraordinary financial and institutional clout, but they do so while representing a smaller and smaller subset of the electorate. At the same time, AIPAC has become a Republican dominated and Republican mega-donor funded organization. It is the largest conduit for Republican donors to meddle in Democratic primaries. It’s past time for the Democratic Party to divorce AIPAC and groups like it.
The electoral consequences of backing Israel’s war and oppression are already evident. A YouGov/IMEU survey reveals that nearly one-third of 2020 Biden voters who turned away from former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 cited the Gaza crisis and U.S. policy on Israel as the decisive issue—outranking traditional concerns such as healthcare and the economy.
Alignment with entrenched special interests, including a hardline Israeli government accused of genocide and other war crimes, undercuts the party’s credibility with key constituencies and diminishes the Democratic Party’s ability to offer a coherent alternative to Donald Trump. To present a robust counterweight to Trump’s authoritarianism, Democrats must articulate a fundamentally different vision—one that rejects complicity in violence abroad and centers human rights as a cornerstone of both its domestic and foreign policy. The longer party leaders cling to the status quo, the more it creates openings for authoritarian narratives to resonate with disaffected voters.
Meanwhile, left and progressive forces within and outside the party must use this opening wisely—mobilizing progressive coalitions for clear, principled anti-authoritarian shifts in U.S. foreign policy, including robust opposition to ongoing military aid that enables war crimes and ethnic cleansing. This week’s vote can provide a springboard for mobilization to thank senators who voted yes and cement their support for an end to the war—and Israel’s apartheid policies. Even more importantly, those who voted against holding Israel accountable for its war crimes must hear from their constituents in their offices, at town halls, and with overflowing phone lines and email inboxes.
The stakes could not be higher. Gaza is facing mass starvation, and 90% of Palestinians in Gaza are displaced. The decisions made in the coming months, especially around military aid appropriations and diplomatic strategy to end the war, will determine not only the future of Palestinians under siege but the credibility and political fortunes of the Democratic Party and any ability to push back Trump’s reactionary authoritarianism.
Those of us who care about the fate of the Palestinians have a role to play in shaping these outcomes. Power from below—organizing, mobilization, and moral witness—can push these elected officials to finally end U.S. complicity. Now is the time to push more senators to join the 27 who voted to block weapons this week. At the same time, we can also organize behind the Block the Bombs campaign in the House. Reps. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), and Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), along with 18 colleagues, have introduced historic legislation to block the U.S. weapons being sent to Israel and used in human rights violations. Supporters are campaigning this August to get as much support in Congress for this effort as possible. If all this mobilization can force more and more members of Congress to take a stand for human rights and justice, that will be good for Palestinians suffering in Gaza and good for American democracy.
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