There were many disheartening moments during the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign for progressives who support Palestinian rights. Yet few were quite as deflating as that moment when the ostensibly progressive, leading member of The Squad, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stood at the podium at the Democratic National Convention and told the audience that then-Vice President Kamala Harris was “working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and bring the hostages home.”

We knew she was lying. AOC herself knew she was lying. But it was just the message that the crowd—who were more than eager to show their support for the Democrats despite the party’s utter refusal to allow even the most conciliatory and moderate Palestinian voice to be heard—wanted to hear, and they ate it up.

The utterly shameless nature of the lie has now been confirmed by no less than nine officials from Joe Biden’s administration and reported on by Israel’s own Channel 13 news program, Hamakor, which, aptly, translates as “The Source.”

No push for a ceasefire

Various members of the Biden administration, including prominent figures such as former U.S. Ambassadors to Israel Tom Nides and Jack Lew and former National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, discussed their frustrations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Yet they, like Biden and Harris, were unwavering in their support for Israel despite their clear dislike of Netanyahu. 

Perhaps the most damning statement came from former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Herzog, who said, “God did the State of Israel a favor that Biden was the president during this period, because it could have been much worse. We fought [in Gaza] for over a year, and the administration never came to us and said, ‘ceasefire now.’ It never did. And that’s not to be taken for granted.”

It’s hard to imagine it being any clearer than that. Once and for all, we need to lay to rest the notion that the Biden administration ever did anything to secure a ceasefire. 

Sullivan summed it up perfectly: “Having the Prime Minister of Israel question the support of the United States after all that we did, do I think that that is a right and proper thing for a friend to do? I do not…And I will always stand firm behind the idea that Israel has a right to defend itself and the United States has a responsibility to help Israel. And I’ll do that no matter who the prime minister is, no matter what they say about me or the U.S. or the president I work for.”

Sullivan, like Biden, Harris, and former Secretary of State Antony Blinken made this attitude plain during his time in office. The Biden administration did all of this for Netanyahu despite the fact that the Israeli prime minister made no secret of his support for Donald Trump, and that it was undeniable that Democratic voters disapproved of Biden’s blind support for Israel.

Ilan Goldenberg held several advisory roles in the Biden administration, mostly in the office of Vice President Harris, for whose campaign he later served as Director of Jewish Outreach and Policy Advisor. He is currently the Senior Vice President and Chief Policy Officer at J Street. He made it clear to Hamakor that the administration understood perfectly well that Netanyahu was dodging any effort at stopping the genocide in Gaza (though he would call it “the war”).

Goldenberg lamented the fact that any discussion about an endgame in Gaza was obfuscated by Netanyahu and ended without any results. “If they’re never going to do this, it doesn’t matter what the outcome is, Hamas is still going to control Gaza,” Goldenberg told Hamakor. “You’re just killing and destroying for the sake of killing and destroying. But you’re not building an alternative.”

This, of course, is familiar to anyone who has been criticizing Israel’s genocide from the start, as it is exactly what we have been saying Israel was doing. Goldenberg’s statements erase any possible argument that Biden and Harris genuinely wanted a ceasefire but were duped by Netanyahu. They knew. They simply didn’t care.

Falsifying reports to Congress

In February 2024, the White House issued a memorandum, NSM-20, titled “National Security Memorandum on Safeguards and Accountability With Respect to Transferred Defense Articles and Defense Services.” The purpose of the memo was to order the State and Defense Departments to report to Congress within 90 days and every year after on any country engaged in active conflict that was receiving military support from the United States. The reports were to confirm that U.S. law was being upheld, and specifically that American arms were not being used and recipient countries were not engaging in violations of human rights or international law.

Israel wasn’t named specifically, and the memo applied to all recipients of U.S. aid, but there was no mistaking that it was intended to mollify the growing criticism of American blind support for the genocide in Gaza. 

In May, the report, as it pertains to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, was due. After some delay, the report was finally submitted, much to the shock of Stacy Gilbert, a twenty-year State Department lawyer, who resigned as a result of it.

The NSM-20 report, as it was called, stated not only that there was “insufficient evidence” linking U.S. arms to specific human rights violations but, even more alarmingly, that the State Department did not “currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of US humanitarian assistance” in Gaza.

Anyone paying attention at the time knew that this was a blatant lie. Gilbert told Hamakor that the report was “shocking in its mendacity,” adding: “Everyone knows that is not true.”

This was her position when she quit State over the report last May. At that time, she said, “There is consensus among the humanitarian community on [Israel obstructing aid into Gaza]. It is absolutely the opinion of the humanitarian subject matter experts in the State Department, and not just in my bureau – people who look at this from the intelligence community and from other bureaus. I would be very hard pressed to think of anyone who has said [Israeli obstruction] is not an issue. That’s why I object to that report saying that Israel is not blocking humanitarian assistance. That is patently false.”

Twenty-year State Department veterans don’t make statements like that lightly, even after they leave. 

Biden officials also spoke about how Netanyahu obstructed ceasefire deals that would have freed the Israeli hostages held in Gaza, fearing the end of the genocide and what that would mean for him personally and politically. 

Biden’s efforts to broker Israeli-Saudi normalization were similarly frustrated by Netanyahu’s refusal to offer even a glimmer of hope for Palestinians. There were also views expressed to Hamakor that Netanyahu didn’t want to give Biden that victory, preferring that a Saudi deal be a Trump accomplishment.

It all paints a very clear picture of Biden going out of his way, enduring humiliations and insults, even breaking U.S. law and violating his own orders to facilitate a genocide in Gaza. It comes as little surprise that figures like Sullivan seemed to feel no regret, much less remorse, over allowing Netanyahu to run roughshod over them. The lack of concern about Palestinian lives is palpable here.

None of this comes as any surprise to advocates for Palestinian rights, who were arguing that this was exactly what was going on from the start. But the fact that it is now being so clearly confirmed by those who were responsible is important.

Accountability for Democrats

The importance of these confirmations was underlined by a very simple tweet from Rep. Ilhan Omar. She shared the Dropsite News report on the Hamakor interviews and commented, “We all knew they weren’t working tirelessly on a ceasefire and it was all a lie.”

Her use of the word “tirelessly” was clearly intentional. It was the buzzword that was used by Biden, but even more by Kamala Harris on the campaign trail. It was the word that AOC used in lying to cover for Harris.

This isn’t Omar trying to “get” Harris, much less AOC. On the contrary, she is actually continuing the efforts of many Palestine solidarity activists in and around the Democratic party who were desperately trying to get Harris and other center-right Democrats to understand that their lies about Gaza were sanitizing a genocide and putting Donald Trump back in office.

It wasn’t only the policy on Gaza, which was opposed by a vast swath of American voters who might have been convinced otherwise to vote for Harris and prevent Trump’s return; it was the utter disrespect for the wishes of her own constituents that Harris and her fellow travelers were displaying. 

Now, Gaza has been destroyed. The number of dead, both from direct Israeli attacks and from the miserable living conditions Israel is certainly far greater than the current death toll of more than 52,000. Donald Trump has doubled down on support for the genocide that Biden and Harris initiated and stepped up the game by openly calling for the complete ethnic cleansing of the Strip.

Whatever the future holds for the U.S. role in the region, it is virtually certain that there will be a role. As such, American advocates for Palestinians need choices that are better than having to decide between a hateful, racist Trump and the actual architects of the policy of full partnership in genocide, Biden and Harris.

Ocasio-Cortez has a very spotty track record on Palestine. Yet she also has a better one than most of Congress, a truly damning, if sadly routine, statement on the American political scene. She is currently trying to build support for her progressive leadership by touring the United States with Bernie Sanders (who is perhaps the best in the Senate on Palestine, though he still falls well short of a genuinely ethical or practical stance).

AOC needs to be supported for her courageous stance last year when she named what was happening in Gaza a “genocide.” Yet she must also be held accountable for lying for Harris about the latter’s efforts to secure a ceasefire. 

Politics is a cynical arena. Political leaders who truly reflect the desires of their constituents are less often presented to the people than made by them. Many noted, in response to Dropsite’s reporting on Hamakor’s interviews, that AOC lied about ceasefire efforts to protect Harris last summer. She needs to be shown the error of that action, but not discarded out of hand for it. 

Ocasio-Cortez has been caught red-handed, and her lies have been exposed by the very people she lied to protect. That can be used to press her to become someone who, if perhaps not everything that proponents of Palestinian rights might want in a Democratic leader, can start to blaze a political trail toward a U.S. policy that respects the humanity, and, more importantly, the rights of the Palestinian people. 

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