By Norman Solomon*
SAN FRANCISCO, USA, 17 April 2026 (IDN) —In the aftermath of last week’s major meeting of the Democratic National Committee in New Orleans, supporters of the U.S.-Israel alliance have been quite content. “We’re pleased that the DNC Resolutions Committee rejected a set of divisive, anti-Israel resolutions,” the president of Democratic Majority for Israel said.
The CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, a former national security advisor to Kamala Harris, also expressed gratitude to the DNC’s leadership.
A Process Designed to Block Change
Why did pro-Israel groups voice such satisfaction—not only with the sidelining of pro-human-rights resolutions but also with the process itself? The answer lies in the DNC’s internal mechanisms, which effectively thwarted any shift in policy on Israel.
A panel called the Middle East Working Group stalled all efforts to align party positions with the views of most Democratic voters, even while ostensibly engaged in serious work.
Last Friday, the thinness of this pretense was evident when Politico ran the headline: “Inside the DNC’s Middle East (Not) Working Group.” Yet the group functioned efficiently—as a device for delay and obfuscation.
The day before, the DNC Resolutions Committee dismissed a resolution addressing Gaza and the West Bank. It included a call to pause or condition U.S. weapons transfers to military units implicated in violations of international humanitarian law. The resolution went nowhere—diverted instead to the so-called working group.
The Working Group: Representation or Charade?
Assisting this diversion was Ron Harris, chair of the Resolutions Committee and a longtime Democratic insider. During the meeting, he claimed the task force had been meeting monthly and working diligently. In reality, it had scarcely met at all.
When asked about this discrepancy, Harris attributed the claim to a DNC staffer coordinating the process.
The deeper issue, however, is not just inactivity but misrepresentation. The working group was not designed to reflect the views of Democratic voters nationwide.
Polling shows that three-quarters of Democrats believe Israel is committing genocide, and a large majority sympathize more with Palestinians than Israelis by a 4-to-1 margin. Yet only a minority of the working group’s members support Palestinian rights, while several are firmly pro-Israel.
Such an imbalance all but guarantees stalemate—or vague platitudes. And for DNC leadership, that outcome appears acceptable.
Divisions Within the Party and the Politics of Patience
These tactics are not new. Political institutions have long relied on delay and limited representation to avoid difficult shifts. In this case, even long-time advocate James Zogby has lent credibility to the process.
For decades, Zogby has championed Palestinian rights within the Democratic Party. Now, as the most prominent member of the working group, he has described its creation as “politically thoughtful” and a step forward.
Recalling a time when party leaders would not even utter the word “Palestinians,” Zogby views today’s limited debate as progress. “Don’t count me among those who left New Orleans complaining of defeat,” he wrote.
In conversation, he framed his approach as recognizing incremental gains: “Sometimes there are little victories, and I latch onto them.”
Others strongly disagree. Mike Merryman-Lotze of the American Friends Service Committee recently called the DNC’s inaction “shameful” in the face of ethnic cleansing and genocide.
When RootsAction’s India Walton disrupted the DNC’s proceedings, she challenged a culture of conformity with real-world consequences—highlighting the tension between patience and urgency in addressing life-and-death issues.
Political Consequences and Moral Stakes
The stakes are profound. On moral grounds, silence or euphemistic complicity with what critics describe as Israel’s policies of ethnic cleansing and genocide is deeply troubling.
Politically, the consequences may also be severe. Clear polling indicates that Democratic voters increasingly oppose military aid to Israel. Failure to reflect this shift risks depressing voter turnout—potentially undermining efforts to defeat Republicans, as some polls suggested during Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign.
Recent data from the Pew Research Center underscores this trend: 80 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents now hold an unfavorable view of Israel, up sharply from previous years.
In a time marked by deep political and moral crises, realism is essential. Allowing wishful thinking to replace urgency risks both ethical failure and political defeat.
*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 free in e-book formats. [IDN-InDepthNews]