Decisions at the latest Democratic National Committee meeting emphasized the disconnect between the party’s leadership and its base
By Norman Solomon / The Guardian
When the Democratic party’s governing body adjourned its meeting on Saturday in New Orleans, supporters of Palestine and an end of the genocide in Gaza had few reasons to celebrate. The Democratic National Committee had refused to give any ground to the large majority of the party’s voters with distinctly negative views of Israel.
Last summer, a Quinnipiac Poll found that 77% of Democrats agreed that “Israel is committing genocide”. Last month, an NBC poll found that 67% of Democrats felt more sympathetic to Palestinians than Israelis, compared with 17% who felt more sympathetic to Israelis.
But the DNC continues to operate as if fully sealed off from the party’s voters on such matters. When the national meeting got under way on Thursday, the party’s resolutions committee proceeded to quickly discard a pair of resolutions critical of Israel.
One urged “an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territory” as well as “pausing or conditioning US weapons transfers to any military units credibly implicated in violations of international humanitarian law”. Another included opposition to “military actions that endanger civilians or exacerbate repression” in Iran.
Those resolutions vanished in a matter of minutes as opponents shunted them aside to a snail’s-pace Middle East working group. That panel has scarcely met since it was announced last August by the DNC chair, Ken Martin. Only a minority of the panel’s eight members has a record of support for Palestinian rights, while several are fervent Zionists. The oil-and-water mix seems destined for stalemate or compromising platitudes.
Halie Soifer, the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America and former national security adviser to Kamala Harris, praised the DNC’s “rejection of two resolutions related to Israel”, which she called “out of step with the policies of the Democratic party”. That description was all too accurate. The resolutions were out of step with the party leadership because they supported the human rights of Palestinian people and opposed assaults on Gaza, Iran and other countries in the region.
When Soifer declared, “We’re grateful to DNC chair Martin for establishing the Middle East working group last year,” it seemed to underscore that the panel has served as a stalling mechanism – deflecting efforts to get the DNC to actually take any stand against US support for Israel.
Outside of the Democratic leadership bubble, this extreme disconnect from the polled opinions of the party’s base might seem puzzling or even stunning. But party leaders are stuck in an anachronistic time warp, severely out of touch with – or contemptuous of – what most Democrats currently believe about Israel. Whether clueless or disingenuous, top Democrats keep insisting that the reality is not reality.