The US has been one of Israel's unwavering backers even as its devastating campaign left much of the Gaza Strip in ruins since Oct. 7.
But as the political repercussions of over 18,000 Palestinian deaths set in, some officials have started — ever so slightly — altering their language of unconditional support, with President Joe Biden going so far on Thursday as to urge Tel Aviv to be "more careful" to protect civilians.
Now, a group of US lawmakers, including over a dozen senators, are advancing legislation to condition security assistance to Israel on its commitment to abide by international law, particularly the laws of war, Zaha Hassan told Anadolu at the recent TRT World Forum in Istanbul.
The human rights lawyer and fellow at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said in the interview a "change" was in motion inside Congress, albeit slowly, as the incredible loss of life in Gaza is making public officials rethink their stance.
Earlier this month, Senator Bernie Sanders and his Democratic colleagues pressed to link US military aid to Israel with specific actions from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reduce civilian casualties in Gaza.
On Dec. 7, President Biden's $105 billion spending package, primarily comprising of additional military aid to Ukraine and Israel, failed to advance in the Democratic-controlled Senate. The proposal, including $14.3 billion for Tel Aviv, faced opposition from Sanders, who objected to providing additional funding "with no strings attached" for Israel's actions in Gaza.
Israel has received over $124 billion in military aid from the US since World War II, the highest among all nations in the world.
Further, a letter signed by 24 House Democrats on Nov. 16, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Betty McCollum, expressed "deep concern" over the situation in Gaza, urging Biden to call for an immediate cease-fire.
"There is a growing concern among the American public and among people inside the administration that are demanding a cease-fire," said Hassan.
According to a study by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), pro-Palestinian protests have surged across the US from Oct. 7 to Dec. 1. The study shows that, initially demonstrations were predominantly in solidarity with Israel, but pro-Palestinian protests began to outnumber pro-Israeli ones within a week of the early-October attack.
More recently, Jewish elders chained themselves to the White House fence in Washington, protesting Biden's policies on Gaza. A dozen demonstrators urged the president to stop funding and arming what they labeled as a genocide in the Palestinian enclave, reading aloud the names of those killed in the conflict.
Labeling a US veto on last week's UN Security Council resolution demanding a truce in Gaza as a "deep setback," rights lawyer Hassan urged the US to stop using multilateral mechanisms to block international action.
"There has to be a group, perhaps European states with an Arab group, that comes together and really starts to use their collective leverage to get the US to unblock what's blocking the UN," Hassan said.
She criticized the US for failing to deliver any progress on a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute beyond rhetoric. "For too long, the US has prioritized the idea of a peace process without actually using its leverage to achieve a political solution between Israelis and Palestinians.
"In the meantime, Israel learned that all they had to do was go through the motions of talking about peace while it was allowed to build settlements and continue to entrench its control over the West Bank and maintain its siege over Gaza," she said.
Hassan suggests a new US approach to the issue, which prioritizes the rights and human security of both Palestinians and Israelis, is imperative. "We have to change the dynamics in the US with a new US approach to peacemaking, which starts with priority tightening up rights and security for all people living between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River."
