By Norman Solomon*
SAN FRANCISCO | 22 March 2026 (IDN) — When the governing body of the Democratic Party convenes next month, it will face a growing challenge to its support for Israel. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has largely evaded the fact that substantial majorities of Democrats oppose continuing military aid to Israel and believe it has committed genocide in Gaza. The stage is set for sharp discord when the DNC’s 450 members gather in New Orleans.
An NBC poll released this week underscores the depth of the party leadership’s political miscalculation. By a striking 67–17 per cent margin, Democratic respondents expressed greater sympathy for Palestinians than for Israelis.
Leadership vs Rank-and-File Divide
The DNC leadership has remained on a collision course with these political realities. Last August, even as a Gallup poll showed that just 8 per cent of Democrats approved of Israel’s military actions in Gaza, DNC chair Ken Martin told delegates that “there’s a divide in our party on this issue.”
What he did not acknowledge was that the divide is not evenly distributed—it lies primarily between party leadership and the broader Democratic electorate.
At that same meeting, amid intense debate over U.S. policy toward Israel, Martin withdrew his own resolution after it passed, alongside the defeat of a pro-Palestinian rights measure. He then called for “shared dialogue” and announced the creation of a task force “comprised of stakeholders on all sides” to continue the conversation, describing the Gaza crisis as “urgent” and an “emergency.”
The Politics of Delay and Deflection
Yet the declared urgency dissipated almost immediately after the meeting ended and media attention faded. More than six months passed before the first meeting of what had by then been downgraded from a “task force” to a “working group.”
The group’s convener, James Zogby—a longtime advocate for Palestinian rights—initially welcomed its creation, describing it as “politically thoughtful” and an acknowledgement that the status quo was “untenable.”
But the status quo has remained unchanged. The DNC’s Middle East Working Group has proceeded at a glacial pace, and its composition—an eight-member panel with sharply divergent views—makes meaningful consensus unlikely.
Some members advocate for an embargo on U.S. arms to Israel; others firmly oppose such measures. One participant, Andrew Lachman, has actively worked within the California Democratic Party to block criticism of Israel and currently leads Democrats for Israel–California.
In practice, the group appears more a forum for delay than a mechanism for resolution.
Electoral Consequences and Internal Fractures
The issue of U.S. policy toward Israel has become increasingly central in Democratic primary contests, placing incumbents on the defensive for their longstanding support of Israel or ties to pro-Israel lobbying groups such as AIPAC. Yet the DNC leadership continues to insulate itself from this pressure.
Compounding the problem is the DNC’s refusal to release its internal “autopsy” of the 2024 election. Reports suggest that Kamala Harris’s unwavering support for arming Israel was a significant factor in her defeat.
By withholding these findings, party leadership claims to be protecting future electoral prospects. In reality, this lack of transparency risks undermining them further by obscuring lessons that candidates and activists urgently need to understand.
Martin argued in a February interview that it is better to focus on the future than to “relitigate” the past. But suppressing the autopsy conveys a different message: that critical insights are reserved for a narrow leadership circle, rather than shared with the broader party.
Grassroots Pressure and a Crisis of Democracy
At the grassroots level, the party is moving in a different direction. The California Democratic Party, responding to mounting pressure from activists, recently adopted a platform calling for:
- an immediate end to civilian casualties and displacement in Gaza
- humanitarian aid and reconstruction without forced displacement
- restoration of funding for UNRWA
Yet the national party leadership lags behind these positions. The DNC’s top-down culture has constrained internal debate, rendering it limited and largely symbolic.
Despite Martin’s rhetoric about fostering open discussion, many within the party remain skeptical. As one progressive DNC member recently observed, “He says he loves internal debate and small-d democracy. I think it’s a talking point. I don’t know that he really wants that.”
More than a year into his tenure, Martin has surpassed the low expectations set by his predecessor, Jaime Harrison. But the DNC remains constrained by its old guard and resistant to accountability to its rank-and-file.
A Party at a Crossroads
On no issue is the Democratic Party’s internal crisis more evident than its approach to Israel.
The creation—and slow-walking—of the Middle East Working Group may have bought time for maintaining the status quo: continued U.S. support for Israeli military actions widely condemned as violations of international law.
But time is not neutral. As the war in Gaza continues and the broader region edges toward further escalation—including confrontation with Iran—pressure from within the party is intensifying.
Activists committed to human rights are unlikely to remain silent. The disconnect between leadership and base is widening, and the political costs are mounting.
The Democratic Party faces a choice: to continue shielding its policies from internal scrutiny, or to embrace the democratic debate it claims to value.
The outcome will shape not only its electoral future, but its moral credibility.
*Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. The paperback edition of his book War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine includes an afterword about the Gaza war. His new book, The Blue Road to Trump Hell: How Corporate Democrats Paved the Way for Autocracy, is available as a free e-book. [IDN-InDepthNews]