When a Democrat was last in the White House, the Biden administration made a pretense of supporting democracy and the so-called rules-based order advocated by former Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. It was surprising, then, that Blinken's initial response to the International Criminal Court's issue of arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant for war crimes was to threaten to impose financial sanctions on the members of that court. Apparently, Blinken thought the ICC's action, which aimed to enforce the laws of international conduct, broke his rules, which seemed to allow war crimes by Israel.
This Democratic administration was headed by a man who liked to hug the indicted war criminal Netanyahu. The weak charade that he and Blinken put on of trying to require that Israel refrain from war crimes was pitiful and sickening, even as the whole world was watching.
Biden has been a major advocate for Israel his whole career. In the 1980s, then Senator Biden held a town hall meeting at the University of Delaware. He was praising Israel when a Palestinian student asked why the Israelis would not allow his family to visit their former home in Israel. Biden told him to come see his office and he would help him out. The student later told me Biden did nothing. The Israelis had driven the student's family from their home during the ethnic cleansing and massacres of 1948. During this town hall, I had an exchange with the Senator, who, to my surprise, asked me what I would do. I responded that I would make them sit down and negotiate. "Oh, no!" he replied. "You better work real hard to get me out of office, then!"
When Senator Sanders offered his first resolution opposing further arms sales to Israel in September of 2024, only 16 Democratic Senators supported it. The Republicans, of course, all opposed it. The congressional delegation from Delaware, my state, is no exception. Both of our Senators, Coons and Rochester, voted against Sanders' first resolution. Sanders' second resolution in July of this year, got Rochester's vote, along with a bare majority of the Democratic Senators, but Coons again voted no.
The American Israeli Political Action Committee, or AIPAC, is regarded as an enforcer of support for Israel, and often works to defeat Senators or Representatives who refuse to toe its pro-Israel line. According to the website of AIPAC Tracker, Coons has received $286,166 from the Israeli lobby, and is endorsed by AIPAC. Former Representative, now Senator, Rochester has received $80,435 from the Israeli lobby, according to the same source; she is endorsed by J Street, which is not the same as AIPAC. Representative Sarah McBride is a strong supporter of Israel; she has accepted $46,520 from the Israeli lobby, and is endorsed by AIPAC, according to AIPAC Tracker. At a recent meeting of the Democratic National Committee, a resolution calling for an end of U.S. arms to Israel was defeated, even though only an estimated 7% of Democratic voters support Israel's actions.
The U.S. Congress is, shamefully, in gross violation of its own laws, the Leahy Laws, which Wikipedia defines as U.S. human rights laws that prohibit the U.S. Department of State and Department of Defense from providing military assistance to foreign security force units that violate human rights with impunity. As is evidenced by the warrant for Israel's Prime Minister and former Defense Minister for Genocide by the International Criminal Court, Israel certainly violates the human rights of Palestinians with impunity. According to the Leahy law, Congress is obliged to end military assistance to Israel. However, Congress and many Democrats there instead blatantly violate their own law.
There are reports that the Democratic Party has suffered at the polls for its ongoing support for Israel's crimes. Kamala Harris' pledge of unyielding support for Israel, following in the footsteps of Biden, seems to have lost the election because it was a prime reason for former Biden voters to stay home. Recently, graduating college students clearly showed they support protests for Palestine. That does not bode well for the Democratic Party's future support from younger voters. As economist Jeffrey Sachs recently stated, the attack by Hamas had been preceded by fifty years of violent subjugation of Palestinians by Israel.
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