Democrats seek to blame only the ‘Netanyahu government’
contact@ifamericansknew.org August 11, 2025engineered famine, israeli apartheid, israeli society, netanyahu war criminal, zionism
SENATE DEMOCRATIC LEADER CHUCK SCHUMER IN OCTOBER 2020. ((PHOTO: SENATE DEMOCRATS))
As support for Israel drops in polls, Democrats are increasingly trying to distance themselves from the Gaza genocide.
A common tactic is to place the blame on “the Netanyahu government,” but this ignores Israel’s long history of ethnic cleansing.
By James Ray, Reposted from Mondoweiss, August 09, 2025
As the genocide in Palestine continues to intensify in what is soon to become its second year, more than a million inhabitants of Gaza are facing a catastrophic famine manufactured by Israel. Sustained military operations and a near-total blockade of aid coming in have resulted in vast swaths of Palestinians lacking the food, water, and other necessities they need to survive. International bodies, including the UN, have begun sounding the alarm on what could very well become the mass death of countless more than have already been murdered by Israeli occupational forces.
As the reports continue to surface and Palestinians themselves continue to cry out from Gaza, public opinion has continued to sour on Israel and efforts to pressure governments around the world to bring the genocidal project to heel. Some political leaders, the opportunists that they are, have no doubt seen this trend, as the rhetoric has begun to shift regarding what has traditionally been the U.S.’s favorite colonial ally.
Democrats from Bernie Sanders to Ritchie Torreshave been releasing statements calling for an end to the starvation in Gaza and the allowance of humanitarian support to enter before it is too late. It seems that even the most ardently Zionist U.S. political actors within the Democratic Party have, at the very least, realized that widespread televised famine will be a stain on the project they support and on their own political reputations.
The reputational damage is especially notable given that recent polling is showing a clear shift in how Americans view Israel and its actions. A recent pollfrom Data for Progress found that over half of Americans surveyed felt the U.S. should prioritize aid to Palestinians in Gaza over Israeli arms shipments. Over half of all respondents also indicated that they believe Israel is committing human rights abuses against Palestinians (53%), with nearly half (47%) indicating that they believe Israel is committing genocide.
When comparing these results to historical polling with the same question, it is also clear that the number of Americans with those opinions is only increasing over time. Even right-wing bases are shifting, with nearly half of the Republican respondents (48%) indicating that they align closer to calls for President Trump to demand that Israel let food and medical supplies into Gaza than calls for him to support Israel in carrying out its military strategies against Hamas (42%).
Politicians who are accustomed to Zionism being one of the safest political positions they can hold are now finding that they have to change their messaging to remain politically relevant and maintain their bases of support as they shift out from under them.
Among some of their rhetoric has even been criticism of what’s being narrowly described as the “Netanyahu government.” This is not new. The criticism of Netanyahu and his Likud-led Israeli government has been a longstanding practice amongst Left and Liberal Zionists in particular, who know that there is value in criticizing the maintenance regime of the colony while avoiding broader critique of the colony itself. Netanyahu has become a stand-in for the problems resulting from Israel’s continued efforts to colonize Palestine and other states within the region – evidence of a colony that has “lost its soul”.
According to their revisionist retellings of history, Israel has simply found itself on a right-wing trajectory, causing it to stray from its core values. Never mind that Zionism as an ideology and its physical manifestation has always been an exclusionary colonial project predicated upon the subjugation, exploitation, displacement, and ultimately attempted annihilation of Palestinians and others across the region, regardless of the Zionist leaders of their day.
The Zionist efforts that would lead to around a fifth of Palestinian peasants being made landless by 1929, well before the colony was even officially “established” in the 1940s, are evidently seen as part of a more “moral” past. When Zionists ethnically cleansed 750,000-800,000 Palestinians from upwards of 530 cities, towns, and villages to establish their project from 1947 to 1949, they were evidently representative of a time in which Israel’s soul was intact. For Liberal and Left Zionists, the real backslide begins only after the project was more firmly rooted in the 1948 territories.
Some look to the Naksa during 1967, when Zionists ethnically cleansed over 300,000 Palestinians and over 100,000 Syrians in their efforts to occupy Gaza, the West Bank, the Egyptian Sinai, and the Syrian Golan Heights. For those who still view that as part of a more “just” time for the colony, the date of moral stain comes from the Israeli invasion of Lebanon – an invasion that led some Israelis to become disillusioned with their project. For others, the real horrors started less than two years ago, somehow, with the real point of no return being Gaza.
Regardless of the timing of this “moral backslide”, the goal is always the same: harkening back to a fictional past when Israel was not a violent aggressor with annihilationist goals, willing to commit whatever atrocities need be to maintain itself and expand. In doing so, they can shift blame away from Israel itself toward the individual actors or political formations within it. They can avoid genuine systemic critique and instead argue for their “ideal” management regimes, ensuring the long-term survival of the colony.
It shouldn’t be surprising, then, as Israel continues a death spiral of legitimacy and popular support internationally, that Netanyahu is becoming the limb that U.S. political leaders are willing to amputate for the sake of the body that is Israel. In doing so, they can sidestep any conversation of a just future for Palestinians, replacing them with narrow discussions over whether or not the apartheid settler colony subjugating them has the “right” management regime. Though appearing to be a rhetorical shift of great value, what it seeks to do is offer up a sort of sacrificial lamb in Netanyahu, as well as his acolytes and allies, to ensure the colony continues to exist.
The question we should be asking ourselves amid this rhetoric is, “Why Netanyahu and not Israel itself?” The answer is simple. Focusing on the history of the colony itself may lead one to rightfully conclude that there is no “ideal” or even “good” management regime when it comes to the leadership of a project built and maintained through mass death and the occupation of another’s land. For those focused on preserving Israel for future generations, that conclusion is an existential threat.
Zionists are doing everything they can to flip the script, reframe our anger, and benefit politically amid surging pro-Palestine sentiments to ensure their colonial outpost can survive into future generations. It is our responsibility to see their efforts for what they are and maintain focus on the Zionist colonialism that is the real driving force of the violence we are seeing unfold, not just in Gaza but across the region. Netanyahu’s removal will not alone bring justice to the Palestinian, Lebanese, and Syrian people under occupation. Only an end to the colonial efforts they are facing will suffice.
James Ray is a reporter for Mondoweiss.
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