There was never a ceasefire / How did we get here?
This is a special edition of the Wire from JVP Action PAC
There was never a ceasefire.
The Israeli government is escalating its genocide across historic Palestine, carrying out near-daily attacks and killing over 120 Palestinians in Gaza during the first three weeks of July alone. Palestinians in the occupied West Bank are facing skyrocketing settler violence and an escalated crackdown by the Israeli military.
As Israeli violence across Palestine reaches a boiling point, Trump announced yesterday a “historic agreement” had been reached for the disarmament of Hamas and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
But Palestinians remain skeptical, and for good reason. Trump’s so-called “peace” plan was announced nine months ago, but the Israeli military continues to kill Palestinians with impunity.
Read more: On the ground in Palestine.
How did we get here?
Poll after poll show the same thing: There has been a significant shift toward support for Palestine among Americans of all ages and political affiliations. Congress is finally starting to catch up with their constituents, and historic numbers of Congresspeople are now voting to block weapons to Israel.
But why has it taken nearly three years of genocide to force Congress’s hand, and why is it still only a minority of Congresspeople opposing genocide?
Israel has always served U.S. imperialism in the region. And for decades, anti-Palestinian lobby groups like AIPAC have successfully punished anyone who dares question that status quo. Until now.
Read more: How did we get here?
On the ground in Palestine.
In Gaza and across Palestine, the Israeli government is escalating its genocide against the Palestinian people.
The Israeli military has been carrying out near-daily attacks in Gaza. It killed over 120 people in the first three weeks of July alone, and the death toll since the October “ceasefire” has risen to over 1,200 Palestinians killed — among them over 260 children. “A child has been killed, on average, every single day for more than eight months,” UNICEF Spokesperson James Elder said last week.
Israeli attacks have been relentless in their frequency and astounding in their brutality. On July 17, the Israeli military bombed a funeral procession, killing at least eight people as they gathered to mourn a man killed hours before in a separate Israeli attack. A few days later, the Israeli military bombed the a family home in Gaza City in the middle of the night, killing Firas and Salsabeel al-Masri and their four children:
“The house burned completely… Burned until it was charred. My brother’s entire family has been erased,” the brother of Firas said. “They burned before our eyes and we couldn’t do anything.” –Drop Site News
In the occupied West Bank, Palestinians are facing an escalated Israeli military crackdown and a surge in attacks by Israeli settlers, who are being armed and emboldened by the Israeli government and working hand-in-glove with the Israeli military to kick Palestinians off their land. Since January, Israeli settlers and soldiers have killed at least 86 Palestinians. Israeli settlers alone have shot 21 people in the last six months.
Last week, four Palestinians, an Israeli settler, and an Israeli soldier were killed during a settler attack on Tal, a Palestinian village southwest of Nablus. The soldier was likely killed by Israeli forces. Yet in the days that followed, Israeli violence across the West Bank skyrocketed even further.
By Monday, the Israeli military had raided at least 20 Palestinian villages — including an assault on a hospital in Nablus, during which they put doctors and nurses in handcuffs and arrested a patient who was being treated for injuries he sustained during the settler attack on Tal. The Israeli military conducted daily raids on Tal and detained dozens of people. Settlers carried out at least 30 different attacks across the occupied West Bank over the weekend, setting homes, mosques, and farmland ablaze.
Late Thursday evening, nine months after the so-called “ceasefire” was announced in Gaza, Trump declared that a breakthrough had been made in ongoing negotiations, writing on social media that “a HISTORIC agreement for the COMPLETE DISARMAMENT of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza,” had been reached. The deal would also involve control of Gaza being handed over to an interim technocratic body, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, a group of Palestinian experts established by Trump’s “Board of Peace” in January.
But by Friday afternoon, neither the Israeli government nor Hamas had commented on the announcement — and myriad questions still remain on what comes next. Though the deal envisions a phased disarmament of Hamas and simultaneous gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, to be replaced by an international stabilization force, it remains unclear when that international stabilization force will be deployed to Gaza, or whether the Israeli military will actually withdraw from the territory. For his part, Israel’s national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said: “The only solution in Gaza to which Israel is willing to be a partner is encouraging emigration and destroying Hamas – no other resolution.”
The reality is that there was never a ceasefire in Gaza. Israel has continued to kill Palestinians with impunity in the nine months since Trump’s so-called “peace” plan was announced. Israeli forces have taken more and more Palestinian land, now occupying up to 70% of Gaza.
“These promises they keep talking about never materialize,” said one Palestinian woman. “Every time they say there will be a ceasefire… everything goes backwards.”
How did we get here?
The polling is clear: Americans’ views around Palestine have shifted dramatically. Today, half of all Americans agree the Israeli government is committing genocide in Gaza. The majority of Democrats and Democratic supporters, and a growing number of Republicans and Independents, are critical of or outright oppose U.S. military funding for Israel. Sixty-three percent of Jewish Americans do not identify as Zionists. Popular support for Israel in the U.S. is the lowest it has been in decades.
Yet despite these shifts in public opinion that have been underway for years, Congress is just now starting to catch up with their constituents. Almost a majority of House Democrats voted in July to end the annual $3.3 billion in U.S. support to Israel — but the majority of representatives continue to support funding for genocide, even with public outrage at an all time high.
U.S. material interests are the driving force behind continued support for Israel. Israel is a core pillar of U.S. imperialism, and for the last four decades the U.S. has sent billions of dollars in weapons and military funding each year in order to preserve U.S. dominance in the region. But what happens when the majority of Americans reject this status quo?
It has taken decades of organizing against apartheid and ethnic cleansing, and nearly three years of genocide for Congress to even get close to taking action, because anti-Palestinian lobby groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) have for decades punished any member of Congress who dares question unwavering U.S. support for Israel.
But for years, AIPAC’s sway has been slipping as the Palestinian rights movement grows and progressives in Congress begin to speak out. In 2021, feeling its popularity dwindling, AIPAC launched a PAC and super PAC, to get more directly involved in elections. AIPAC knows that its primary issue — ongoing complicity in genocide and apartheid — are increasingly unpopular with American voters. So they have relied on pouring tens of millions of dollars each election to smear and attack political leaders who are speaking out. For a moment, this influx of money seemed to work.
That was then. Today, a historic shift is underway.
Organized people can beat organized money.
Despite AIPAC’s best efforts, last November our movements propelled an unapologetic champion for Palestine, Zohran Mamdani, to victory as mayor of NYC. Since then, 11 JVP Action-endorsed candidates, including six congressional candidates have won their primaries — not in spite of but because of their unwavering support for Palestinian freedom. They were brought across the finish line by the same grassroots machine that knocked thousands of doors and made hundreds of thousands of calls for Zohran Mamdani’s campaign and that has elected and defended progressives in seats across the country.
Our movements are proving that support for Palestine is a political asset, and we are exposing groups like AIPAC for the pro-fascist, racist, and warmongering groups they are. Though AIPAC’s reputation is at an all time low, it continues pouring money into elections. Right now, AIPAC is spending big to try to defeat candidates like Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed, the first JVP Action-endorsed candidate for Senate.
This is a hotly-contested Senate race in a critical swing-state that could have implications for the 2028 Presidential race, and AIPAC is going all in. They have dropped tens of millions of dollars to attack El-Sayed and back his opponent, Haley Stevens, a staunch supporter of Israel who once said that Israel “comes to her” in her “dreams.” As was the case with Zohran, these attacks often rely on racist and Islamophobic smears.
AIPAC knows the tide has turned and that they cannot run and win candidates on the issue of supporting Israel. So they are doing everything in their power to try to pack Congress with electeds who will keep funding and arming the Israeli government’s genocide. But our movements have already shown that organized people can beat organized money.
This is crunch time. Will you take action with us ahead of three critical primaries next week?
Take action: Help elect champions for Palestine.
AIPAC is spending tens of millions of dollars to keep pro-Palestine champions out of Congress. Our movements have already shown that organized people can beat organized money, and now we’re going to do it again — but only if every single one of us steps up.
Election Day in Michigan and Missouri is August 4. We need you to help make calls to voters so we can elect three candidates who will fight to cut off the flow of weapons to the Israeli military. Don’t worry if you’ve never phonebanked before – you’ll be trained by expert phonebankers who started off exactly where you are now.
Call Congress: Vote NO to funding war.
Against the will of the overwhelming majority of Americans, The National Defense Authorization Act includes $1.1 trillion for the Pentagon and Trump’s war on Iran, and a new provision that seeks to fuse the U.S.-Israeli military and weapons industries.
The Senate successfully blocked the NDAA once, and we can do it again. Your Senators need to hear from you.
What we’re reading: “The dream I carried for 10 years was gone.”
Hind Khoudary writes for Al Jazeera about the surge in miscarriages across Gaza amid the collapse of the healthcare system.
The Wire is JVP’s weekly newsletter on all things Palestine and Palestine solidarity movement. With over 150,000 subscribers, it is one of the biggest American publications dedicated to justice.
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