Democrats’ Gaza – The Democratic National Committee’s delayed 2024 election autopsy left Gaza out, and Democratic-aligned foreign policy groups have staged events that critics say gloss over the Biden administration’s Gaza handling. Senators Brian Schatz and Chris Van Hollen pr
May 28, 2026
A key test for Democrats is whether they can tell a single, coherent story about responsibility—especially when the stakes are measured in civilian lives. For many in the party’s coalition, last week’s sequence of decisions felt like an answer in the negative, and it wasn’t subtle.
After a delay. the Democratic National Committee finally released the post-2024 election autopsy report that DNC chair Ken Martin had long promised. The report was described as incomplete and a “mess. ” and—most importantly for critics—it did not mention Gaza. even though the conflict remains a divisive and consequential point of tension inside the Democratic coalition.
That omission landed as part of a broader pattern that Democratic-aligned institutions have struggled to break. On May 19. the Center for American Progress held its annual “Ideas Festival. ” featuring a panel titled “The Future of US Foreign Policy.” Three of the four panelists were former Biden administration officials. Two of them—former secretary of state (now CAP board member) Antony Blinken and former UN ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield—were presented as top decision-makers during what a growing consensus of experts has categorized as the Gaza genocide. Gaza was not mentioned on the panel. The piece also notes that Blinken appeared at the event unannounced, possibly to avoid protests that now follow him everywhere.
The next day carried a different kind of signal. Foreign Policy for America (FP4A). describing itself as “working to strengthen support for principled US leadership in the world. ” held an event honoring Thomas-Greenfield with a lifetime achievement award. The argument made here is that as UN ambassador. Thomas-Greenfield vetoed multiple UN Security Council ceasefire resolutions—measures that might have saved thousands of lives—so honoring her was framed as an insult to Palestinians killed. maimed. or still suffering in Gaza. and as an affront to those who tried to get the Biden administration to change course.
The tensions also extend into the ecosystem of Democratic foreign-policy advocacy. The article points to National Security Action, a Democratic-aligned foreign policy group cofounded in 2018 by former Obama administration officials. It says that after leaving government in 2025. former Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan rejoined its board of directors. as he did with FP4A’s board shortly after leaving.
The author of the piece—Matthew Duss—writes from deep familiarity with these circles. saying he worked at CAP for six years as a national security policy analyst. was involved in meetings and workshops with National Security Action and Foreign Policy for America since their founding. spoke at FP4A’s launch event in 2017 alongside Sullivan. and has engaged with their staff and leadership.
In Duss’s account, the problem isn’t competence. He emphasizes that these organizations have many talented. principled staff—including the recently relaunched National Security Action’s new executive director. Maher Bitar—and that progressives need strong groups to build and mobilize. The concern, he writes, is that they cannot do that if they “facilitate impunity rather than accountability.”.
He ties Gaza to a wider accusation about how power works in Washington: “elite impunity. ” he argues. sits at the core of the political crisis. In his telling, the wealthy and well-connected “pay no price” for offenses, operating under a different set of rules. Anger at that impunity. he says. is what Donald Trump exploits when he argues that “the system is rigged.” Even if Trump’s claim is aimed at the wrong target—benefiting his own wealthy and powerful allies—the language resonates because it matches lived experience. and candidates who effectively channel that disillusionment are winning.
Where Democrats now face pressure is not just in what they say, but in what they refuse to confront. Duss points to President Joe Biden’s 2022 speech declaring Americans were locked in a “battle for the soul of the nation.” The argument is that allowing officials who assisted in carrying out the Gaza war to “move past it” and resume careers of respect and remuneration—possibly returning to positions of government power—would be another loss in that battle.
That push for a shift isn’t coming only from outside the Senate. Two Democratic senators. Hawaii’s Brian Schatz and Maryland’s Chris Van Hollen. are cited as arguing that Democrats need foreign-policy “housecleaning.” Schatz tweeted on Sunday that he is “not into blacklisting anyone from future work in their area of expertise” but that “it’s fair to want a whole new crop of foreign policy staffers in the next democratic administration.”.
Van Hollen’s language is sharper. In a New York Times op-ed. he wrote: “Primary voters won’t trust any Democratic presidential candidate who does not have a record of moral and strategic clarity on these issues. especially if. as a legislator. he or she voted to send Mr. Netanyahu bombs even as his government imposed a total blockade on Gaza.” He added that voters also “will not support a candidate who plans to re-enlist the senior Democratic decision makers who whitewashed the truth during the Biden administration and refuse to acknowledge their complicity.”.
The author anticipates the counterargument: accountability efforts divide Democrats and distract from the threat of Trump and Trumpism now. echoing Barack Obama’s 2009 decision not to seek accountability for the Bush administration’s crimes—framed here as “look forward as opposed to looking backward.”.
But the article rejects that comparison. It says the Gaza genocide is not over and is ongoing. In that framing, accountability becomes necessary not only to help prevent future atrocities but to raise alarms and try to stop one that is still being committed.
The closing emphasis is on credibility and political survival. Democrats. Duss argues. cannot credibly punish the Trump administration’s “constantly mounting acts of corruption and criminality” while absolving their own side for abuses and lies. He writes that if Democrats are serious about restoring and strengthening democracy—“unrigging the system and the elite impunity it sustains”—they need organizations committed to that struggle.
For voters watching the party’s major institutions and foreign-policy forums, the question is whether Gaza will continue to be treated as an avoidable subject—or whether Democrats will finally align their personnel, their messaging, and their moral accounting with the reality on the ground.
That choice, for many, is already shaping how Democrats look at the next election cycle: not as a reset button, but as a reckoning.
Democratic National Committee Ken Martin post-2024 election autopsy Gaza Antony Blinken Linda Thomas-Greenfield Center for American Progress Foreign Policy for America National Security Action Jake Sullivan Brian Schatz Chris Van Hollen UN Security Council ceasefire resolutions Israel-Palestine