Israel-Gaza War Divides Democrats, Fuels Primary Battles

The Israel-Gaza war created gaping divisions in the Democratic party and contributed to a resounding loss in a critical presidential election year in 2024. Two years later, the issue continues to dominate races across the country, as progressives try to seize on Israel’s falling popularity and a broad anti-war sentiment ahead of November’s midterms.

A recent debate among two Democrats vying for one of the most competitive US Senate seats in the country openly displayed the tension between progressive and moderate camps of the party.

“They clearly want one individual and it’s not me,” Michigan Democratic contender Abdul El-Sayed said, referring to pro-Israel groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that are spending against him. “So long as our politicians continue to be bought off by Aipac, do not be surprised when we fight wars that are in their best interest to annex Lebanon, or to do genocide in Gaza.”

Haley Stevens, the moderate US representative benefiting from pro-Israel spending in the Senate race, retorted that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “trashing” her on CNN that day, saying she wasn’t afraid to stand up to Israel either.

“No one owns my vote and no one owns my policies,” she said during the debate. “Anyone who is contributing to my Senate campaign is doing so because of my proven record of fighting for Michigan.”

The careful balance of rhetoric and policy required of candidates trying to capture American sentiment on Israel has become a fraught litmus test.

A poll by the Associated Press in June shows a third of US adults of all political backgrounds, and roughly half of Democrats, believe Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. The share of Democrats who said the US was too supportive of Israel was nearly 60%, up from 45% in January 2024.

While younger Democrats were more likely to hold this view, older Democrats increasingly share it too, the poll found. Barack Obama official and moderate Democrat Rahm Emanuel’s speech in Tel Aviv this week could serve as evidence of that shift. With his eye on the 2028 presidential election, the former mayor of Chicago emphasized that US military aid to Israel should end, and in related interviews said he wouldn’t take money from Aipac. Both of these statements would have been taboo for a moderate Democrat a few years ago.

This year, the prominent role that foreign wars and outsized political spending play in the primaries has been particularly stark in Michigan. El-Sayed frequently ties these wars to affordability, saying he wants to invest in families in the US through healthcare or schools or infrastructure rather than sending billions to wars overseas. His campaign put up a website looping Stevens saying, in part: “Israel comes to me in my dreams”.

The United Democracy Project, an Aipac-affiliated Super Pac, has spent about $11m to boost Stevens or oppose El-Sayed so far, with more ad buys slotted for the last few weeks of the primary, which is set for 4 August. The group is one of the biggest spenders in congressional elections.

“We are trying to ensure that pro-Israel Democrats have a voice in the primary process,” said Patrick Dorton, a spokesman for the Aipac Super Pac. “There is an insidious attempt by fringe left socialists to drive pro-Israel Democrats out of the party. We are not going to let what happened to the Labour party in the UK happen to the Democratic party in the United States.”

But pro-Israel groups are also facing increasing headwinds nationwide. In New York, a slate of democratic socialists who didn’t hesitate to speak out against the war in Gaza have notched victories against incumbents. In Colorado, a Democratic socialist who had been fired after speaking out about Gaza beat a longtime representative. A doctor who worked in Gaza won a Democratic primary in New Jersey. In Illinois, pro-Israel groups created pop-up Pacs with benign names to spend big in Democratic primaries, largely without success.

Still, establishment picks, some with backing from Aipac-affiliated groups, continue to win in many places. Adrian Boafo won a Democratic primary in Maryland after benefiting from millions from pro-Israel groups.

“There isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer,” said Tali deGroot, vice-president of political and digital strategy for J Street, a liberal pro-Israel and pro-peace lobby group.

Even among the American Jewish community, the US-Israel relationship is not typically the number one issue bringing people to the polls, deGroot said. (And this demographic is contending with its own shifts on the issue; a recent poll found that Zohran Mamdani, the face of the rising left, is more popular than Israel’s Netanyahu among Jewish Americans.)

Foreign policy usually doesn’t crack the top five issues voters rank as important in a general election, deGroot noted. But it is one area where Democratic primary voters can see differences between candidates.

“A candidate’s willingness to buck the status quo of our foreign policy is a good example, a good symbol for them to show that they’re going to be willing to buck the status quo on all kinds of issues that people care about right now,” she said.

Whether and how these issues translate into the general election, and the salience of the issue in swing districts or states, remains to be seen. But war in Iran, and high gas prices that go along with it, keep the issues in the news and on voters’ minds. For some voters, a position on Gaza is a required part of a progressive platform.

‘Do you see how mad they are?’

The debate over Israel’s war on Gaza brings forward a host of other key planks for the progressive left, including affordability and rampant money in politics.

“There’s something about taking a position on Israel, Palestine and Gaza that is about authenticity,” said Andy Levin, a former congressman who lost his seat to Stevens in 2022 after Aipac poured millions into the race. “The Gaza issue almost exemplifies now the questions about authenticity and truth-telling in politics that the people are caring about.”

Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist state representative in Wisconsin who is running for governor of that state, said standing up for Palestine is about integrity. There are some voters for whom Israel/Palestine is a top concern, but also those who recognize the economic strains they’re feeling are tied to military spending, Hong said via email.

“Voters understand that a politician unwilling to fight against the massacre of children abroad (which we’re funding), they won’t stand up for folks back home,” she said.

Darrin Madison, a state representative in Wisconsin who is also a democratic socialist, said voters in the state want to stand up against special interests trying to buy elections, such as when Elon Musk poured tens of millions in a supreme court race in the state.

As he travels around the state, he is hearing that voters’ number one concern is affordability. Number two? “People have consistently asked questions about if candidates are being bought out by special interests.”

There should be room for nuance, said deGroot – for candidates to talk about the rights and needs of Israeli citizens alongside Palestinians, and there should be room for candidates to evolve their positions.

But some of the discourse around the topic veers more into bullying, she said. Scott Wiener, a state senator running for Congress in California, was hounded by protesters at a trans pride march and said people were “cornering me, touching me or trying to physically bully me out of a public event”.

In Democratic primaries, the issue ranks highly, and is fueling strong passions.

Misty Ramsey, a delivery driver in Macomb county, Michigan, recently told the Guardian she didn’t follow the Middle East for a long time. But a song by the rapper Macklemore about Hind Rajab, a five-year-old girl killed in Gaza, led to her researching more and more about the war. She felt the American public had been “conditioned to not care”.

“If you’re pro-Israel: fuck you,” she said. “There shouldn’t be a question of if it’s OK or not. We’re so far past it being, ‘Is it all right?’”

Ali Fawaz, 34, an independent voter in Dearborn, Michigan, said most people in his community have direct ties to Palestine or Lebanon, and seen their families affected by Israel’s attacks, making them more attuned to how candidates talk about the issue. There’s frustration at both parties for aiding Israel and over outsize spending by pro-Israel groups in elections, he said.

“When it comes to the presidency, whether it’s Democrat or Republican, we’ve seen for the last 25 years there hasn’t been a single change in the trajectory of what’s going on in the Middle East,” he said.

There’s a broader anti-establishment wave afoot that pushes back on Democratic inaction and shuns the idea of choosing the most cautious, centrist candidate, Levin said. It’s “shallow and pat” to seek out the middle when a host of people are staying home entirely, not believing any party will do anything that helps them.

“Are you awake? Are you paying attention? Do you see how mad Republican and Democratic primary voters are?” Levin said. “They’re sick of it.”

Kat Abughazaleh, who ran in a Democratic primary for Congress in Illinois and lost, said voters frequently brought up Israel/Palestine on the campaign trail because it was a “litmus test for a lot of reasons”. Abughazaleh, who is Palestinian, said she won the most conservative part of her district and in Chicago, and in both places, Gaza came up an equal amount.

Madison, of Wisconsin, also described it as a litmus test, a sign of whether a candidate will stand up for marginalized communities.

“If you aren’t willing to take that stance, what other communities are you willing to abandon?” he asked. “Is that folks of color, rural communities, working-class communities?”