One political strategist called the party’s establishment “dysfunctionally out of touch with its voters on this issue.”
“Stop arming the genocide” protest at San Francisco Pier 32, which hosted a media event for local Democrat, U.S. Rep Nancy Pelosi, on March 29. (Peg Hunter, Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0)
A day after U.S. President Joe Biden commemorated the Holocaust, speaking about Americans’ “obligation to learn the lessons of history” to ensure another mass slaughter of a religious or ethnic group never takes place, new polling shows the majority of U.S. voters, whose support Biden is counting on in November, believe Israel — with U.S. backing — is committing genocide.
Journalist Mehdi Hasan’s new media organization, Zeteo, partnered with progressive think tank Data for Progress to poll 1,265 U.S. voters from April 26-29 as Israel’s ground invasion of Rafah loomed, threatening more than 1 million Palestinians in Gaza who have been forcibly displaced since October.
The poll released Wednesday found that 56 percent of Democratic voters believe Israel is committing a genocide against Palestinians in the enclave, where in addition to constant bombings and ground attacks, residents have faced Israel’s blockade on nearly all humanitarian aid.
The blockade has pushed northern Gaza into famine and is causing acute food insecurity among the entire population.
Nearly 40 percent of all voters believe Israel is committing a genocide, and 7-in-10 support a permanent cease-fire.
People’s State of the Union protest, delaying Biden’s speech, March 7. (Diane Krauthamer, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Israel’s full-scale assault on Gaza, where 2.3 million Palestinians live, has been ineffective at bringing the Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7 to safety, more than 50 percent of voters said.
Fifty-four percent said they support suspending all U.S. arms sales to Israel until it stops blocking American humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. Such a suspension would be in accordance with Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.
Israel and the U.S. have repeatedly claimed that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is taking steps to protect the lives of civilians — even as the world has learned of mass graves found with the bodies of Palestinian women and children, some with their hands tied behind their backs.
In April, Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham of +972 Magazine reported that military officials have permitted up to 100 civilian deaths for every Hamas member killed, and that the IDF has targeted Hamas fighters in their homes instead of at military outposts.
The Zeteo/Data for Progress poll was released more than four months after the International Court of Justice announced an interim ruling that Israel is “plausibly” committing genocide, which came after South Africa brought its case to the United Nations court.
South African attorney Tembeka Ngcukaitobi gave a 22-minute speech during the hearing, cataloging the numerous genocidal statements made by top Israeli officials since October, up to that point. Last week, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for the “total annihilation” of Gaza cities, including Rafah, [where Israel has begun its attack.]
The poll was also released as mass protests continued on college campuses across the U.S., with police aggressively cracking down at many schools as they ignore attacks on students by pro-Israel mobs, as in the case of University of California, Los Angeles last week.
A separate poll released Wednesday by USA Today and Suffolk University found that Democratic voters are split in their views of the student movement. Thirty percent supported the protests, while 39 percent agreed with their demands but questioned some of their tactics. Two-thirds of respondents said they feared more violent confrontations would arise from the protests.
The Data for Progress survey is the latest sign that Biden, who signed a foreign aid package including $17 billion in additional military aid for Israel last month, faces widespread discontent among the coalition of voters who supported him in 2020.
In January, The Economist and YouGov found that a full 50 percent of people who voted for him believed Israel was committing genocide.
More than 100,000 Democratic primary voters in Michigan — which Biden won by just 150,000 votes in 2020 — voted for “uncommitted” on their ballots in February, hoping to send the message to the president that U.S. support for Israel must end. Similar results were seen in primaries in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Washington state.
Strategist Nadia Rahman said the poll shows the Democratic establishment is “dysfunctionally out of touch with its voters on this issue.”
The majority of Dem voters believe Israel is committing genocide & the majority of elected Dem officials don’t call what’s happening in Gaza genocide.
The Democratic establishment is dysfunctionally out of touch with its voters on this issue.
There will be consequences. https://t.co/liOTeGm09C
— Nadia Rahman ?? (@nadiarahmansf) May 8, 2024
“This is some of the clearest data yet that there’s a massive disconnect between the media and what’s happening on the ground,” said journalist Ed Oswald. “And why yes, Biden’s re-election is in big trouble.”
Julia Conley is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
This article is from Common Dreams.
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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Jill Stein is the Peace Candidate, the candidate with honesty and integrity. Biden is less than a shell of a man and even previous was covertly corrupt, with an emphasis on covertly. Joe never cared about the people of Ukraine. Look at them now. Or their unmarked graves in the rubble. It was business. Trump would be worse, simply mouthing niceties to whatever camp he seeks approval from. And Jared? Give me a break!! What a Vampire. The psychotic, genocidal, maniacs in control in Israel (more appropriate- OUT OF CONTROL manipulation)and those in the wings of this shite show, don’t give a hoot about their own hostages. They simply want to bulldoze all of Palestine, completely eliminate all it’s population and then do with it whatever they wish. The hostage situation all along was just a ploy to justify the evils they have been commiting in the eyes of the public that have a hard time confronting that they could possibly be that cold and heartless. Just a ruse all along. That is why they censor and shut down free speech and kill journalists. They kill the doctors because they don’t want ANYONE left alive over there. They don’t want people to see the real evidence of their crimes. This is why they shut down Al-Jazeera in Tel Aviv. They don’t want it known that Hamas agreed to release the hostages. It would look bad for Netanyahu and the US State Department- who are lying their buts off and avoiding questions like crazy- that there really is no justification whatsoever to not go forward with a full annihilation of Rafa. Although Jill Stein is the peace candidate, it is not to say that the voice of every sane American who is against genocide amd the slaughter of innocent civilians is not severely needed right now for a more secure future for all of humanity.
What a refreshing group of comments, lacking even the obligatory bleat about how much worse the alternative (you, know that good old ‘lesser evil’) is and actually touching on just how bad ‘the more effective evil’ is to use Glen Ford’s assessment of how well the Democratic establishment has managed to manipulate its adherents by dicing them up into identity groups that don’t pose any real threat to what that establishment really needs to cater to.
Beginning with “The Democratic Party is a Big Lie” and using that to demonstrate just how pitiful a force without much in the way of ‘identity groups’ in the U.S. voter base to appeal to single-issue voters who may join in common cause to use for leverage (generic ‘peace’ movements and opposition to distant atrocities haven’t had those for the past half-dozen decades or so given the attraction of personal issues when compared against possibly inconvenient issues of far greater significance and news value).
The problem is hardly that our Congressional representatives are ‘in thrall’ but that the voters are because they are simply too comfortable with the way things are rather than aware of how much better they could be if they demanded better from their government and from themselves.
Loyalty to the long-accustomed idea of a political party which used to stand for something other than retaining its power is a lot more comfortable than looking hard at it and deciding whether it’s worthy of loyalty any longer.
When you own both major political parties you don’t very much care what voters think about an issue.
What a sad and pathetic bunch! Now even death is being politicized. Does it matter what it is called? DEATH IS DEATH. A stain on the entire WHITE Anglo/Saxon world.
” … the Democratic establishment is ‘dysfunctionally out of touch with its voters …’ ”
It has been for decades – on a number of issues. And yes, its great so many voted “uncommitted”in the primaries, but when it comes time for the election too many will, as they have for decades, decide, for all his faults, deceptions, etc., ole’ Genocide Joe is still the LOTE
Frankly i think that too much of “progressive media” for all its vaunted independence, is also dysfunctional – it has failed to bring progressive 3rd parties front and center – has failed to debunk the “can’t win” and “spoiler” memes the duopoly has made “common knowledge” and in so doing left the field to that terminally corrupt duopoly
From my understanding the two flanks of the Business party have come together to erect structural barriers to third party candidacies.Most media the public ever sees is corporatized. That consequence has produced reportage that severely skews and narrows the reality to benefit corporate interests. Research has shown that the frequency of Bernie’s name was midget sized while Biden’s was exponentially greater. And today respectable research can be found – in The New York Times, for example – of the blatant sins of omission of actual events about Israeli wanton destructiveness and Palestinian suffering and horrific demise. Progressive alternative news sites – The Lever, Consortium News, Truthout, the Intercept, Counterpunch, ScheerPost , Democracy Now, Rumble and The Grayzone do not have the access to the larger public. Were the citizenry to become aware of and subscribe to these excellent news sources, the propaganda servicing the government and corporate mainstream media would be profoundly challenged. And perhaps, public pressure to unwind the structural difficulties faced by 3rd party candidacies would become dismantled. And thereby the vitality of the citizenry’s participation in shaping policies could significantly develop effectiveness in getting our needs meaningfully addressed.
Hear! Hear!
The Democratic Party is a Big Lie.
They pretend to be left. They used to pretend to be the FDR New Deal coaltion. But all of that is long, long gone. Now, the Democrats start their campaign with a Big Lie: “We Care about you.” Its all a lie. The entire campaign is a lie. And they can’t even pull that off any more, they can’t even pretend to care. They just yell about Hate Trump! Over and over and over. But the Democratic Party does not care. Not about any of us. If you are a billionaire, vote Democrat. That’s who they care about.
Its Gaza that has made it obvious, at least on one level. But, we are all Gaza. Free America!
The entire American political system is a LIE!!!
I’m assuming that these polled (and Philip Giraldi had those opposing up to 72% on May 6) were not beguiled by the falsity of Biden’s May 7 speech (I keep hearing “Have you no sense of decency, sir?” in my ear as I look at it). His remarks constitute self-righteous confusion between hatred of Jews and critique of the ongoing massacre, turning worse currently in Rafah.
This nauseating display certainly demonstrates the nudity of an emperor who is starkly incompetent and desperate while looking for approval for “sounding good.”
hxxps://www.cnn.com/interactive/2024/05/annotated-biden-speech-holocaust-memorial-dg/
In the UK last week the official opposition Labour Party didn’t do as well as expected in local council elections. A clear message was sent, we Britons do not like the Gaza genocide. Labour Party leader Keir Starmer says he’s listening to the Muslim community and he will “address their concerns” but he’s learned nothing! He immediately diminished the crime. Many of us don’t like it, probably the majority, and he says he’s listening to the [minority] Muslim community. He’s trying to make this big problem small, almost like it’s a fringe concern, not a crime of monumental proportions we thought the world would never witness again.
If this is accurate, then, any of the people who acknowledge the reality of Israeli genocide who vote for Biden in the coming elections are as guilty of collaboration with genocide as were any Germans, who knowing what was happening with the Jews, supported the Nazis, even if they were not party members.
Agree. There is no “lesser evil.” Only evil.
Right on!!!
I agree completely.
It’s even worse than that Guillermo. Despite the efforts to keep the scenes of destruction out of the MSM the whole world can see the wholesale destruction that Israel is intent upon. So long as the whole world does not come together and demand an end to this atrocity (or better yet, act collectively to MAKE it stop) Israel succeeds in making the whole world complicit. I can imagine that poisonous viper Netanyahu throwing this fact back in the face of collective humanity.
I’m surprised that the number is so low. What do the other 44% Democrats think it is, a tea party?
The remaining 44% are the power mad, dominate the world, crush all opposition, Russia must be defeated, China must be defeated, Wall Street must dominate the world the solar system the galaxy and everything Democrats chanting “Four More Years” trying to drown out the cries of the murdered.
Surely you’ve noticed them. There seem to be a lot of them about, and they all seem quite proud of themselves.
One aspect is convenient mental inertia, and another, team loyalty. You support your local football/basketball etc. team, and if it plays badly, you still cheer and hope for a better tomorrow. We Americans are the good guys and our party is better than the other.
Next, while political parties do not have Leninist discipline we can observe in UK, creating electorally credible alternative movement is still impossible, and probably most of the voters view such attempts as not credible and not worthy of attention. So bulk of self-identified Democrats will vote for their crappy representatives.
Next, GOP helps in presenting itself as genuinely worse. Guys like Biden and Blinken lack religious fanaticism and try using sophisticated notes (Blinken from memory, Biden from the prompter).
Next, to break through barriers electorally, you need compelling personalities. And those personalities all too often turn thoroughly disappointing. I have Tulsi T-shirt and sweatshirt, quality is good, which cannot be said about Tulsi Gabbard herself. With that experience and few others, I did not contribute a penny to RFK. Jill Stein is a very decent person, but to easy to dismiss by “average voters”. Thus those who feel strongly against genocide will simply stay home. I really hope that GOP will win and the clique dominating Democratic party will get thoroughly discredited.
In short, within USA the decay is not strong enough for the bipartisan hegemon to collapse. Which may change…
Biden talking about “American’s obligation to learn the lessons of history to ensure another mass slaughter of a religious or ethnic group never takes place”. Oops, too late Biden! Boy what a Spin Doctor – He is definitely in LA-LA land! Glad to see the public if finally waking up to the lies, deception and corruption!
No one has asked me! Free Palestine!
Unfortunately this won’t do jack squat. The vast majority of Dem congressional representatives are in thrall to the rabid Zionist lobby.