Three Ways America’s Discourse on Palestine Has Radically Improved

By Ismail Allison, CAIR National

Times are changing. For decades, the dominant narrative in American politics depicted Israel as a peaceful democratic nation defending its existence from fanatical, irrational Palestinian terrorists who have no interest in dialogue.

That was then. This is now. The American public’s response to Israel’s recent human rights abuses against Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah, at Masjid Al-Aqsa and in Gaza have revealed that our national discourse on Palestine has radically — and perhaps permanently — changed in at least three ways:

1. Courage and Condemnation from Elected Officials

Unequivocal and uncritical support for Israel has been a bipartisan position in American politics for a long time. Whenever violence breaks out between Israel and Palestinian militant groups, Congress would normally pass an almost unanimous resolution expressing unqualified support for the Israeli government and disregarding the plight of the Palestinian people. And the few elected officials who dared to express sympathy for the Palestinian people would be at risk of condemnation and losing their next election.

That didn’t happen this time. In fact, numerous prominent elected officials vocally condemned Israeli oppression of Palestinians.

Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, a member of the Democratic Party’s progressive wing, made an impassioned speech addressing the crisis in “occupied Palestine” on the house floor on May 15. “Colleagues: Palestinians aren’t going anywhere, no matter how much money you send to Israel’s apartheid government,” Tlaib said.

In her speech, Tlaib called for American aid to Israel to be conditional on the latter’s adherence to international standards on human rights and the ending of the apartheid system against Palestinians.

Condemnation of Israel did not just come from the the only Palestinian-American member of Congress. Echoing their colleague as well as several prominent human rights groups, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Ayanna Pressley referred to Israeli policy as constituting apartheid and condemned the Israeli bombing campaign on Gaza and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah.

The statements by these members of Congress demonstrate just how much discussions on the Israeli occupation of Palestine have advanced. Using words like ‘apartheid, ‘occupation,’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ to refer to Israeli policies would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, especially for elected officials. Now, they are used confidently before a national audience.

During the recent escalation of violence, Congress did not pass a resolution supporting Israel, as it has done in prior years. In fact, 28 senators led by Jon Ossof of Georgia called for an immediate ceasefire in a joint statement, stressing the need to protect civilian lives.

In another letter led by Representatives Marie Newman andMark Pocan, twenty-five other members of the House sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken urging him to exert diplomatic pressure on Israel to halt evictions of nearly 2,000 Palestinians from the Jerusalem neighborhoods in Al-Bustan and Sheik Jarrah.

In his speech introducing a resolution to block the $735 million dollar sale of precision-guided weapons to Israel on May 19, Senator Bernie Sanders condemned the “increasingly intolerant and authoritarian type of racist nationalism” promoted by the Netanyahu government.

“If the United States is going to be a credible voice on human rights on the global stage,” Sanders explained, “we must recognize that Palestinian rights matter, Palestinian lives matter.”

2. Social Media Changes the Story

In prior years, corporate media was the primary source of Americans’ knowledge of virtually all world events, including the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

However, the development of social media over the past decade has allowed for the democratization of information and a greater diversity of opinion. It has also but for raw, first-hand views of the situation on the ground. These developments have dealt a blow to the corporate media narrative and have opened the eyes of many young Americans to the oppression faced by Palestinians.

During the recent escalation of violence, Palestinians made use of their smartphone cameras and social media accounts to show what theIsraeli government’s violence looks like up-close. Videos of residential neighborhoods being bombarded, Israeli lynch mobs brutally attacking Palestinians in Jerusalem, and civilian casualties circulated across platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Tiktok, Instagram, and Snapchat.

Hashtags like #savesheikhjarrah went viral, as did videos depicting Israeli settlers forcing Palestinians out of their homes. One such video featured an Israeli settler telling a Palestinian woman that if he didn’t steal her home, “someone else will.”

In America, many young people are using social media to draw attention to the violence and raise money to aid those who have been affected by it. It is also through social media that Americans are holding their public figures accountable for their positions on the occupation.

After tweeting his support for Israel, New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Yang faced significant backlash from the public, as well as from fellow politicians like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, who tweeted that his actions were “shameful.” Yang eventually responded to pressure by walking back his initial comments, saying they were “overly simplistic” and “failed to acknowledge the pain and suffering on both sides.”

3. Shifts in Public Opinion

A lot of the change in public discourse on Palestine can be attributed to a shift in how Americans see the Israeli occupation. Polls conducted between 2001 and 2011 have shown consistent American support for Israel, with more than 50% harboring pro-Israeli sentiments and only 20% expressing support for the Palestinian people. Among both Republican and Democratic voters, the percentage of those who supported Israel was over 50%.

However, starting in 2018, opinion amongst Democratic voters began to change. A Pew Research Center poll found that around this time, the percentages of Democrats who supported Israel and those who supported Palestine began to even out, at around 25%.

Gallup’s yearly update of American public opinion on the Israel-Palestine conflict for 2021 showed that, while favorable ratings for Israel remain the majority at 75%, favorable ratings for Palestine have reached an all-time high at 30%. 25% of respondents said their sympathies lie more with the Palestinians, another record-breaking number. A majority of respondents said they support Palestinian statehood.

The results of a new Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey found that while 60% of Americans blamed Hamas for the recent escalation of violence, 40% blamed Israel.

This is an especially surprising development given that most media outlets did not widely cover the events that triggered the latest full-blown conflict between Hamas and Israel: the Israeli government’s attempts to expel families from Sheikh Jarrah and its attacks on worshippers at Masjid Al-Aqsa.

Of the many factors that led to these changes in American public opinion on Palestine, perhaps the most powerful is the ongoing racial reckoning. Over the past year, Americans have been made to think about the consequences of their actions as citizens.

A massive mobilization of the public under the banner of social justice has caused many to pay closer attention to the plight of the Palestinians. Many Americans see parallels in the displacement and oppression of Palestinians at the hands of a settler-colonial project to the struggles of communities of color in their own country.

If public opinion continues to move in a pro-Palestinian direction, we can expect greater pressure on policymakers to address the challenges faced by Palestinians as a result of decades of violence, ethnic cleansing, and occupation.

Although these developments in American public discourse on Palestine are promising, much has yet to change. Statements by President Biden, while acknowledging the humanity of Palestinians (after pressure to do so from progressive members of congress), still do not carry the kind of condemnations of Israeli human rights violations necessary to force a longterm change in their conduct. As usual, Biden also blocked the UN Security Council from issuing a statement calling for an end to the violence.

Many Republican politicians continue to uphold Israel’s infallibility, and many Democrats have failed to join their colleagues in taking a stand against Israeli treatment of Palestinians.

Much of the mainstream media continues to shy away from honestly reporting the facts on Israeli actions in Palestinian territory, even in the face of Israeli bombings of media offices in Gaza.

However, as the American public becomes more aware of the reality of the Israeli occupation through the bold efforts of courageous elected officials, outspoken activists, and more balanced journalists, the discourse on Palestine appears likely to continue improving in the months and years to come.

Ismail Allison is a recent graduate of Howard University who serves as an intern with the Council on American-Islamic Relations.