A mini brouhaha has erupted over whether or not the Democratic National Committee has buried a so-called autopsy report on the party’s loss in the 2024 US presidential election. Some fear that the report isn’t being released because it suggests the defeat was the Harris campaign’s failure to break with the Biden administration’s disastrous policy that enabled Israel’s sustained assault on Palestinians in Gaza. As a result, some groups are accusing the DNC of carrying out a coverup and demanding that the report be released.
I’ve been on the DNC for more than three decades and am no stranger to how the party handles, or avoids handling, issues involving Palestine and Israel. I believe that for those of us who support Palestinian rights and are concerned that leading Democrats have been on the wrong side of this issue for too long, the fight over whether such a report exists and, if it exists, what it might say, is not where we need to be focusing our energy.
I say this because we already have all the evidence we need to write our own autopsy report that demonstrates conclusively that voters, especially Democrats and Independents, are fed up with blind support for Israeli policies. This is a fact. And while we have hard polling data to prove it, establishment Democrats and political consultants reject this reality and continue to operate from an outdated playbook.
But the changes are real and can’t be ignored. Many polls have established just how extensive they are. A recent Gallup poll shows that for the first time more Americans sympathise with Palestinians (41 per cent) than with Israelis (35 per cent). This is especially pronounced among Democrats where sympathy for Palestinians is three times greater than it is for Israelis. And a John Zogby Strategies poll from February shows that a plurality of Americans now view the US relationship with Israel as more of a liability (45 per cent) than an asset (34 per cent). Again, among Democrats the margin is three to one (57 to 19 per cent).
This growing antipathy toward Israel translates into shifting attitudes toward policy. Other polls show voters affirming that they’re more likely to support candidates who advance such positions and less likely to vote for those who defend Israeli policies and want to maintain current levels of military aid to Israel.
For further evidence of this shift, with just months before the midterm elections, it’s striking to note that more than three dozen congressional candidates have already declared their intent to reject political contributions from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other pro-Israel groups. This includes a number of sitting members of Congress, all of whom have previously been strong supporters of Israel and have, in previous elections, been the recipients of millions of dollars from pro-Israel sources.
Although these changes in attitudes toward Israel have been brewing for several years now, they were dramatically accelerated by Israel’s more than two-year assault on Palestinians in Gaza. While the horrors accompanying Hamas’s October 7 attack generated an initial flush of support for Israel, as the toll of Palestinian civilian casualties grew and the extent of Israel’s gratuitous mass devastation of Gaza became clear, support for Israel collapsed.
This was clearly in evidence in the 2024 presidential contest. Post-election analyses showed that Kamala Harris lost the backing of a wide range of Democratic and Independent voters because she refused to make a decisive break with president Joe Biden’s support for Israel. Instead of listening to her own instincts and being more critical of Israeli practices and more vocal in support of Palestinian rights, she listened to the establishment political consultants who cautioned against rocking the boat.
The consultants, campaign operatives and media analysts didn’t get the changes that were afoot then, and they still don’t get it now. They are caught in a time warp that views the US politics of the Middle East as if the last two years of Israel’s war hadn’t occurred. But they did happen and they have been transformative.
It used to be said that criticism of Israel was akin to touching the “third rail” in American politics – avoid it or get burned. In a way, it still is, but in reverse. Support for Israel was once the touchstone issue candidates for Congress. Polls now show that voters are less likely to vote for candidates who refuse to criticise Israel or who take money from pro-Israel PACs.
As we get closer to this year’s midterm elections, we can expect more candidates to publicly distance themselves from Israeli policies. We can also expect that pro-Israel groups will panic and up the ante by pouring tens of millions into defeating candidates who are critical of Israel. My sense is that this may backfire, as it did with the recent special House election in New Jersey, because in 2026 what will be controversial are Israeli policies and pro-Israel campaign contributions, not the opposite. The sooner the analysts, consultants and media figure that out, the better our politics will be.
Given this background, fighting for the party to release an autopsy is less important. Surely, if it exists, it should be released, but where our attention might better be focused is in supporting candidates who are refusing to accept pro-Israel PAC contributions and running on platforms challenging failed policies of the past. We should also join the growing number of DNC members who are calling on the party to ban dark money in elections. This is an instance where looking forward, not backward, will help to bring the change we need – and to be where Democratic voters are already.
