In September,<\/span> the European Union seemed poised to suspend<\/a> trade agreements with Israel over its human rights violations in Gaza. In the United States, a record number of Democratic lawmakers began to support calls to limit weapons transfers to Israel. In Germany, Chancellor Friedrich Merz\u2019s government issued a ban in August on sending weapons to Israel that could be used in Gaza, with Merz saying he was \u201cprofoundly concerned\u201d for \u201cthe continued suffering of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip.\u201d<\/p>\n By early October, however, with the enactment of President Donald Trump\u2019s 20-point plan<\/a> \u2014 which world leaders call a \u201cceasefire\u201d or \u201cpeace plan,\u201d despite ongoing Israeli violence in Gaza \u2014 such concern seemed to evaporate. Mounting international pressure was replaced with an eagerness from many governments, lawmakers, and institutions to return to the status quo.<\/p>\n Exactly one week after the Gaza plan went into effect, EU parliamentarians tabled its proposals to sanction Israel over its human rights violations in Gaza. One month later, the German government, Israel\u2019s second largest supplier of weapons, announced it would lift its arms embargo on its longtime ally; last week, Germany\u2019s parliament approved a $3.5 billion deal<\/a> to expand its missile defense systems to protect Israel. Earlier this month, Eurovision, the popular singing competition<\/a>, cleared Israel to continue competing, despite pledges to boycott from Spain, Slovenia, the Netherlands, Ireland, and Iceland. The U.N. Security Council also authorized Trump\u2019s plan, agreeing to help form a so-called International Stabilization Force. <\/p>\n In Congress, even as polls<\/a> show most Americans disapprove<\/a> of Israel\u2019s military action in Gaza, lawmakers and advocates behind the Block the Bombs to Israel Act <\/a>in Congress have struggled to build on its summertime momentum, garnering only two new co-sponsors since Trump declared he had achieved peace.<\/p>\n What happened?<\/p>\n \u201cNow that there is technically a \u2018ceasefire\u2019 in place, that alone has had a big immobilizing effect on activists, advocates, and \u2014 I think more importantly \u2014 just the general public,\u201d said Tariq Kenney-Shawa, a policy fellow at Al-Shabaka. Calls for a \u201cceasefire now\u201d had a galvanizing effect for public pressure to end the killing<\/a> \u2014 so the Gaza deal served as a release valve.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Israeli military continues to violate the agreement, launching strikes into Gaza on a near-daily basis and continuing its partial, yet illegal blockade on humanitarian aid. The United States, for its part, has so far been unwilling to enforce the truce in any meaningful way beyond strongly worded letters. <\/p>\n Under the Gaza deal, gunfire and bombings have slowed but not ceased, with the Israeli military striking Gaza more than 350 times<\/a> since, killing at least 394 people and wounding more than 1,000 others across the Strip, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and the United Nations. Israel continues to occupy 58 percent of the territory, establishing a largely imaginary yellow line within which the military demolishes buildings and civilian infrastructure and shoots Palestinians along the indefinite border \u2014 including two children, Fadi Abu Assi, 8, and Jumaa Abu Assi, 10, who were killed by an Israeli drone while gathering wood<\/a>. The Israeli military also continues to launch daily attacks beyond the yellow line, including the assassination of Hamas commander Raed Saad<\/a> on December 13, which drew the ire of the White House<\/a>.<\/p>\n In tandem with its ongoing strikes in Gaza, Israel launched a new military operation in the West Bank, raiding refugee camps, conducting mass arrests of Palestinian civilians, and killing unarmed individuals<\/a>, including at least 14 children during confrontations with Israeli soldiers, according to Defense for Children International-Palestine. One boy, 13-year-old Aysam Jihad Labib Naser, died of tear gas inhalation one month after Israeli soldiers attacked him and his family while they were picking olives<\/a>.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s Gaza plan \u201chas given a convenient excuse to members of Congress to look away from the situation,\u201d said Josh Ruebner, policy director at the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project. He supports the Block the Bombs bill, originally introduced by Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., in May, and acknowledged that it had stalled in recent months. \u201cBut the reality is that U.S. weapons are still being used on an almost daily basis by Israel to kill Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s Gaza plan \u201chas given a convenient excuse to members of Congress to look away from the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n The Israeli government has allowed a trickle of aid into Gaza but continues to block <\/a>most international and Palestinian aid groups <\/a>from delivering supplies, a violation of both the 20-point plan and international law. Stuck at the border <\/a>is $50 million worth<\/a> of aid, such as food, maternal and newborn care supplies, much-needed treatments for malnutrition, and shelter goods.<\/p>\n On Friday, the global hunger monitor IPC declared<\/a> Gaza is no longer experiencing famine, but warned the majority of Gazans still face \u201chigh levels of acute food insecurity.\u201d Half a million people remain in \u201cemergency\u201d levels of acute malnutrition, risking death, the monitor said. Around 2,000 people are still experiencing famine conditions. Exacerbating the hunger crisis, winter storms blowing through the Strip have ripped through and flooded tent cities<\/a> and war-torn homes where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians were sheltering. At least 13 people have died as a result of the weather, according to Gaza health officials. Among them is one-month-old Saeed Eseid Abdeen<\/a>, who died last week due to hypothermia.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n By signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Use<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n As attention and<\/span> outrage have waned, Israel and its defenders have attempted to regain control of the narrative that they have struggled to wield over the last two years of genocide.<\/p>\n At the Jewish Federations of North America conference in November, former Obama speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz blamed<\/a> Israel\u2019s losing public relations battle among young Americans on TikTok<\/a>, which is \u201csmashing our young people\u2019s brains all day long with video of carnage in Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n TikTok is \u201csmashing our young people\u2019s brains all day long with video of carnage in Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cAnd this is why so many of us can\u2019t have a sane conversation with younger Jews,\u201d said Hurwitz during a panel discussion in which she also blamed the backlash against Israel on backfiring Holocaust education<\/a>. \u201cBecause anything we try to say to them, they are hearing it through this wall of carnage.\u201d<\/p>\n Several weeks later, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton<\/a> \u2014 speaking at a conference hosted by the Israeli news outlet Israel Haymon, owned by right-wing, pro-Israel, pro-annexationist megadonor Miriam Adelson \u2014 also blamed<\/a> young Americans\u2019 concerns over Gaza on TikTok and social media, dismissing livestreamed<\/a> genocidal violence as \u201cpure propaganda\u201d and as \u201cthreat to democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n Hurwitz and Clinton failed to mention how such dismissals of Israel\u2019s atrocities have been powered by massive crackdowns<\/a> on the free speech rights<\/a> of Palestine solidarity advocates in the U.S. and abroad<\/a> \u2014 and how legitimate concerns for the safety of Jewish people have been weaponized<\/a> to crack down on pro-Palestine speech.<\/p>\n After the mass shooting at a Hannukah event in Sydney, Australia\u2019s Bondi Beach, where two gunmen killed 15 people, mostly Jewish festival goers, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately seized on the moment to tie the violence to Australia\u2019s recognition of Palestinian statehood<\/a> earlier this year following widespread anti-genocide protests in the country. In a CBS Mornings<\/a> segment covering the shooting, Israel\u2019s former special envoy for combatting antisemitism <\/a>Noa Tishby advocated for the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition<\/a> of antisemitism, which considers criticism of the state of Israel<\/a> as antisemitic.<\/p>\n Lawmakers in Australia\u2019s New South Wales, where Bondi Beach is located, are now considering a ban on all protest for up to three months. In the United Kingdom, police agencies in London and Manchester responded last week to the Bondi Beach shooting by criminalizing the chant<\/a> \u201cglobalize the intifada,\u201d a call for popular resistance against Israel\u2019s occupation of Palestinians, commonly misinterpreted<\/a> to mean violence against Jewish people. The Trump administration, meanwhile, issued a travel ban <\/a>on all Palestinian Authority passport holders, citing concern over \u201cU.S.-designated terrorist groups operate actively in the West Bank or Gaza Strip.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the recent measures taken against the pro-Palestinian movement, Kenney-Shawa said he believes Israel and its backers will still fail in the long term to retake the narrative.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re not going to be successful in restoring Israel to its former untouchability in U.S. politics \u2014 that train has left the station,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Biden generation obviously grew up with all these myths about Israel and those myths were shattered by this generation who\u2019s growing up with new facts about Israel, the reality of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n A growing body<\/span> of polling shows Americans, mostly on the left but increasingly on the right<\/a>, are beginning to reject the government\u2019s special relationship with Israel \u2014 signaling a major role for such shifts in the upcoming midterms <\/a>and the 2028 presidential election.<\/p>\n The Trump plan itself remains uncertain. Its second phase would see the disarmament of Hamas, though the Palestinian militant and political group has said it would only give up its weapons if there is a path toward Palestinian statehood. Israeli officials, however, continue to reject calls for a Palestinian state. Instead, Netanyahu\u2019s cabinet has been open about its stated policy of totally erasing Palestinians from both Gaza and the West Bank in pursuit of forming \u201cGreater Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n Whether the rising awareness will amount to material improvement for the people of Palestine is also unclear. Some protesters aim to make their efforts tangible by interrupting the global supply chain of weapons sent to Israel, as new campaigns by the Palestine Youth Movement have sprouted at docks and warehouses in Oakland<\/a> and New Jersey<\/a>. In the United Kingdom, imprisoned <\/a>Palestine Action members are undergoing a weekslong hunger strike<\/a>; among their demands is the closure of Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit System\u2019s factories in Britain. The Hind Rajab Foundation, meanwhile, continues to file legal complaints<\/a> and investigation requests across the globe aiming to hold Israeli soldiers and commanders accountable for war crimes<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI will not continue to willingly be part of that complicity.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n And in Congress, public pressure still seems to be having some influence on lawmakers. A recent resolution<\/a> introduced by Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., which recognizes \u201cthe genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza\u201d and underlines the U.S. responsibility in upholding the Genocide Conventions, has drawn support from 20 other members of Congress \u2014 including Rep. Maxine Dexter, D-Ore., who was elected with significant support<\/a> by pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC.<\/p>\n \u201cI will not continue to willingly be part of that complicity,\u201d Dexter said during her speech<\/a> on the House floor to back the resolution. Dexter is one of several lawmakers who have altered their public stances on Israel after sustained protest from their constituents at town hall meetings and in front of their district offices<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cPublic opinion has shifted in permanent and dramatic ways,\u201d Ruebner, of the IMEU Policy Project, said. \u201cPeople cannot unsee what they have seen over the past two years.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n
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