Washington doubles down on support for Israel

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Washington doubles down on support for Israel
Senator John Fetterman recently denied the Gaza genocide. (Tom Williams CQ Roll Call)

By Michael F. Brown, Reposted from Electronic Intifada, September 20, 2025

Democratic Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania continued the Democrats’ piling on against Palestinians this past Sunday (September 14).

Fetterman asserted to CNN’s Manu Raju: “There’s no ethnic cleansing. It’s not a genocide. This is a just war.”

Asked by Raju if Israel was using “starvation as a weapon,” he claimed: “No. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Israel is not deliberately starving people, absolutely.”

He added, “Those conditions are miserable there. And it is hell on earth. Why? Some people blame Israel for that? I blame Hamas and Iran for that thing.”

This continues most Democrats’ failure to recognize the Gaza genocide, even walking back the genocide assertion in the recent case of Congresswoman Katherine Clark, a top leader in the House of Representatives.

Asked by Raju about Israel’s attack on Qatari soil earlier this month, Fetterman replied: “Yes, yes. Absolutely, it’s appropriate unless Hamas is willing to surrender and send people home. That’s a war, and it’s a just war.”

Even President Donald Trump, who may well be lying about US and Israeli actions that day, has publicly expressed greater concern. Clark and Hakeem Jeffries, the top-ranked Democrat in the House of Representatives, recently dodged questions about the attack on Qatar.

Republicans, for their part, are cracking down on speech opposing the Israeli attack. Codepink co-founder Medea Benjamin told The Electronic Intifada on September 19 that her arrest earlier this month at the behest of Congressman Darrell Issa constitutes “a terrible form of intimidation aimed at trying to get a judge to give me a ‘stay away’ order from Congress so that I could not exercise my right, indeed my responsibility during a genocide, to try to hold our elected officials accountable.”

Trump, flexing despotic muscles this week as he and Republicans have for months against pro-Palestinian students, is even designating the anti-fascists of Antifa as a “major terrorist organization.”

Federal law allows the executive branch to designate groups outside the US as “foreign terrorist organizations,” but there is no equivalent domestic law. Trump’s rapid turn to right-wing authoritarianism does raise concerns about how he might proceed.

Internationally, his Secretary of State has already this month sanctioned three Palestinian human rights groups – the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Al Mezan, and Al-Haq – for having the temerity to document the genocide Israel and its leaders are carrying out in the Gaza Strip.

DMFI

One reason Democratic elected officials aren’t saying more about the attack on Qatar may be because the Democratic Majority for Israel continues to do its job of backing Israel and the actions of its right-wing prime minister. The DMFI supports the campaigns of pro-Israel Democrats and challenges those, like former Congresswoman Cori Bush, who don’t support Israeli apartheid and the Gaza genocide.

DMFI CEO Brian Romick accused Trump of breaking with Israel in a statement posted to Twitter/X. “After years of criticizing Democrats – despite our party’s 75-year history of supporting Israel – President Donald Trump yesterday [9 September] broke with our vital ally in an unprecedented manner.”

Romick added, “President Trump used his platform to undermine Israel at a time when we must demonstrate a unified front to get the hostages home and bring a negotiated end to the conflict. He even went so far as to direct his special envoy to alert Qatar, and in so doing risked alerting Hamas about the attack.”

In other words, DMFI accepted the idea of one US ally attacking another with no warning from the US.

Romick concluded by stating, “The White House now must answer whether their pre-warning of the attack in any way compromised Israel’s ability to eliminate Hamas’ terrorist leadership.”

DMFI’s statement made no mention of the Qatari security official killed in the Israeli missile strike and avoided reference to the fact that the US and Israel had agreed on Qatar providing a space for Hamas in which negotiations could proceed.

The attack occurred at the very moment Hamas officials were considering a ceasefire deal offered by Trump. Possible Trump administration complicity remains a very real question, particularly after its involvement in Israel’s attack on Iran.

Following that Israeli attack on Iran in June, Trump claimed, “We knew everything, and I tried to save Iran from humiliation and death. I tried to save them very hard because I would have loved to have seen a deal worked out.”

The Israeli attack on Iran prevented a sixth round of uranium enrichment talks, yet Trump claimed in the aftermath that he wanted to continue such discussions. “They can still work out a deal,” he said. “It’s not too late.”

Similarly, during his visit to Qatar earlier this week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio seemed to think Qatar could simply carry on as a broker of talks between Israel and Hamas in the aftermath of the Israeli attack, which killed not only the Qatari security official but five lower-ranking members of Hamas, failing to kill top negotiators.

In a tweet, Rubio expressed his thanks for “Qatar’s ongoing mediation efforts to broker a peace deal between Israel and Hamas and to bring the hostages home.”

Leaders in the region are surely reappraising how much the word of the US means in the aftermath of the attack by one favored ally against another.

These leaders are also likely well aware of rising tensions and political instability in the US, with the assassinations this year of Democratic and Republican political leaders. Additionally, Trump is now threatening to disregard the First Amendment to go after protesters with racketeering charges (RICO or the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) for shouting objections to his policies in Gaza at a Washington, DC restaurant.

A Codepink spokesperson by email on September 19 told The Electronic Intifada: “Like many progressive organizations, we have faced threats of government investigations for the past two years. Nothing has ever come of these, because we have done nothing wrong. Their sole purpose is to intimidate us and discourage our advocacy for peace and justice.”

Trump faced dismayed citizens connected to Codepink protesting his appearance at a restaurant near the White House. Of that protest, the spokesperson added: “There is no ‘conspiracy’ around disruptions and confrontations” such as at the restaurant where Trump ate on 9 September. “We practiced nonviolent and non-threatening free speech. It is as simple as that. Anyone who values free speech should be appalled at this attempt to criminalize it.”

Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, who years ago got an introduction to the occupied West Bank from anti-Palestinian Ben Packer, who met him at Duke University, also made threatening remarks. There is concern that Miller’s rhetoric could extend to political opponents.

Speaking to Fox News, Miller contended on 12 September: “To all of the domestic terrorists in this country spreading this evil hate, you want us to live in fear, we will not live in fear, but you will live in exile because the power of law enforcement under President Trump’s leadership will be used to find you, used to take away your money, used to take away your power and, if you’ve broken the law, to take away your freedom.”

Note that even before a finding of law-breaking, Miller is saying the administration will take away targets’ money and power, and they will be put into exile. Who determines who is a “domestic terrorist” remains to be seen, but Trump’s announcement designating Antifa a “major terrorist organization” suggests a broad sweep of left-wing and anti-fascist groups may be under intense consideration. At the very least, Trump likely hopes to intimidate and silence some opponents.

AIPAC and J Street agree

In a further demonstration of the absence of substance in the House Democratic leadership, last week, J Street – the Israel lobby group that poses as “pro-peace” – endorsed House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and he accepted the endorsement.

Jewish Insider reported that the three top Democratic leaders in the House – Jeffries, Katherine Clark, and Pete Aguilar – have now been endorsed by both J Street and AIPAC. Both groups oppose the Palestinian right of return and boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaigns to secure Palestinian rights and freedom.

The three leading Democrats are not the kind of politicians to get out front and insist on equal rights for Palestinians as Israel pursues apartheid annexation of the West Bank and war crimes in Gaza. The caution they bring to these matters is driven home by the simultaneous endorsements from the liberal J Street and conservative AIPAC.

In the midst of a genocide that elected officials from both major parties are funding, Democrats have fielded an extraordinarily weak slate of complicit leaders in the House of Representatives. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is no better in the US Senate.

Bernie Sanders

On 17 September, more than 700 days into Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, Senator Bernie Sanders concluded in an op-ed that what we are witnessing is, indeed, a genocide.

Better late than never, but had he listened more to Palestinian voices, he could have been here well over a year ago. In making his case that it’s a genocide, Sanders fails to cite any Palestinian organization or a single Palestinian.

Instead, he cites the International Association of Genocide Scholars, Israeli human rights organizations B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, as well as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. He also cites the UN commission of inquiry, which reached the genocide conclusion earlier this week.

While rightly citing the genocidal comments of numerous Israeli ministers, Sanders overlooks similarly genocidal comments from congressional colleagues such as US Senators Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham, as well as Congressman Max Miller.

Another shortcoming of Sanders’ op-ed is that it seems to start history on 7 October when he writes in his first sentence that “Hamas, a terrorist organization, began this war with its brutal attack on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 innocent people and took 250 hostages.”

Sanders characterizes as “innocent” the Israeli soldiers guarding an open-air apartheid prison camp who were killed that day and says nothing of the Israeli citizens killed on 7 October by the Israeli military acting under the Hannibal Directive.

The New York Times admitted in a correction I secured that “more than 300 soldiers and police officers were among those who died.” Ironically, the article to which the correction was appended was, in fact, about activists’ disappointment back in November 2023 with Sanders’ response to Israel’s mounting war crimes in Gaza.

The Vermont senator has tried to cut certain US arms to Israel – notably not all military aid to Israel – but has frequently been months late to take up the concerns of constituents who look to him for strong leadership pushing back against this livestreamed genocide.

If ever there was a time for Democrats to follow his painfully slow lead in the US Senate, now would be that time.

Michael F. Brown is an independent journalist.

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