Democratic critics of Israel’s war in Gaza are struggling to maintain attention for the cause under President Donald Trump, despite Israel continuing to escalate its war effort and a mounting death toll that has surpassed 55,000 civilians.
“There’s so much going on it’s literally hard to juggle 50 bombs,” Rep. Mark Pocan told NOTUS. “Usually you’re juggling eight or 10, but this is so much going on with the Trump administration that I think everything doesn’t break through in the same way.”
He and other lawmakers are continuing to push for policy change through speeches and legislation. But without a Democrat in the White House, they are less able to influence policy. And while many voters are still following the war, some Democrats say that Americans have become less engaged on the issue.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley told NOTUS that the general public has also become “incredibly desensitized to suffering,” so much that progressives aren’t breaking through on their other hallmark issues like police brutality either.
“People just equate the suffering of Black, Brown, marginalized people as part of our narrative, our experience,” Pressley said. “It’s like our grief, our trauma, is unremarkable for people.”
James Zogby, who co-founded the Arab American Institute, told NOTUS he believes that the crackdown on anti-war campus protests has muted the pro-Palestine movement in the United States. He said that students and professors are more afraid to speak out against the war than in the past.
“There has been obvious repression at universities that will have an impact long beyond this year and into the future,” he said. “When Democrats were in power, there was a sense that one could impact, even though one didn’t have the ability to impact.”
Lawmakers said they would press on anyway. As Pressley put it, “We still have to continue to shine a light.”
Earlier this month, Pressley, Pocan and other progressives introduced legislation to condition weapons and aid to Israel. The bill requires that Congress have oversight in and approve the sale of weapons to Israel.
Although the bill has little to no chance of becoming law in the near-term, progressives view it as an effort worth undertaking nonetheless.
“This is the first time we’re saying Congress should have to approve an offensive weapon sale, given the nature of how Netanyahu has misused what he’s gotten from the United States,” Pocan said. “We just want to make sure that there’s at least some checks and balances.”
Although there’s been little change in the federal government’s policy on Gaza, worldwide attention on the war has not dissipated. On Thursday, thousands of activists from around the world marched to the Egyptian side of the Gaza border as part of a movement to break Israel’s blockade on humanitarian aid to Gaza.
“In our community it’s still a vibrant and it’s a hot issue,” Warren David, president of Arab America, an organization that advocates for Arab American rights, told NOTUS.
A recent Quinnipiac University poll found that a record share of American voters oppose the war in Gaza, and only 12% of Democratic voters said they sympathize with Israel.
“I do believe that there is more and more conversation and outrage about the genocide that Israel is carrying out,” Rep. Ilhan Omar told NOTUS. “I don’t think that there is relenting.”
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Tinashe Chingarande is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.