DNC Leadership Pressured Gen Z Member to Kill Resolution on Banning Arms to Israel

When it comes to Israel’s handling of the war on Gaza, Democrats are nearly united. Only 8 percent of party members support Israel’s military actions, according to a Gallup poll from last month.

A vote at the Democratic National Committee meeting later this month could once again expose the yawning rift between the party’s base and its leaders, who are lining up to oppose a resolution against arms for Israel.

Allison Minnerly, the 26-year-old committee member sponsoring the measure, told The Intercept Thursday that Democratic leaders risk further alienating party members — especially young voters — if they kill the symbolic resolution.

“Our voters, our base, they are saying that they do not want U.S. dollars to enable further death and starvation anywhere across the world, particularly in Gaza,” said Minnerly, a first-term DNC member from Florida. “I don’t think it should be a hard decision for us to say that clearly.”

Minnerly’s resolution has reopened a simmering debate in the party’s top ranks over the war.

In August 2024, Democratic National Convention delegates approved on a carefully worded platform that backed giving Israel a “qualitative military edge” while pursuing a two-state solution and a “durable end to the war in Gaza.”

The party platform outraged the delegates with the Uncommitted movement who had hoped to pressure Vice President Kamala Harris into breaking with President Joe Biden and supporting an arms embargo on Israel.

The pressure from rank-and-file party members has only grown in response to the unfolding famine in Gaza. In a first, most Senate Democrats voted last month in favor of a resolution to block offensive arms sales to Gaza.

Those Democrats, many of them senior citizens, were catching up with the sentiment of younger voters regardless of party. In February 2024, only 16 percent of adults under 30 supported giving military aid to Israel versus 56 percent of people 65 and older, according to a Pew Research Center poll.

Minnerly’s proposed resolution cites the Senate vote and public polls in calling on Democratic elected officials to support an immediate ceasefire, enact an arms embargo, suspend military aid, and recognize Palestine as a state.

After Minnerly put forward her resolution on August 4, she said, representatives of DNC Chair Ken Martin reached out to propose a compromise. But the proposal they offered did not go far enough in calling for pressure on Israel, she said. “Ultimately it was clear to me the conversation they’re having is different from the reality today,” she said.

In response to Minnerly’s resolution, Martin and other party leaders have offered one of their own that largely mirrors the 2024 party platform and does not call for the suspension of military aid to Israel, according to a copy obtained by The Intercept and reports from multiple outlets. (The DNC did not respond to a request for comment.)

Pro-Israel Democratic groups have come out swinging against Minnerly’s resolution, focusing on its lack of language condemning Hamas and calling for the language to include the release of Israeli hostages.

“Should it advance, it will further divide our Party, provide a gift to Republicans, and send a signal that will embolden Israel’s adversaries. As we get closer to the midterms, Democrats need to be united, not continuing intra-party fights that don’t get us closer to taking back Congress,” said Brian Romick, the head of Democratic Majority for Israel, a pro-Israel group aligned with right-wing groups that get Republican funding.

Minnerly said the resolution focuses on Israel because that is where the U.S. has leverage.

“The U.S. government directly interacts with the Israeli government,” she said. “We do not have a direct line of communication with Hamas, or the ability to necessarily influence their decisions.”

Minnerly’s resolution is co-sponsored by DNC members from Maine, California, and Florida, according to a copy she shared with The Intercept. Still, that support pales in comparison to the influential party members who lined up behind the Martin-backed resolution.

Minnerly acknowledged that winning the vote would be a “challenge.”

“I am optimistic that people are willing and open to have this conversation. It’s just going to take political courage,” she said.

A DNC committee is set to vote August 26 on the competing resolutions, Minnerly said.

Regardless of which symbolic resolution the DNC supports, individual elected officials will be free to vote how they choose in Congress or elsewhere. Still, Matt Duss, a former foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders, said “the position of the DNC does matter. It sets the tone for the entire party.”

“I look at these two resolutions, and the first one is simply just regurgitating the same old language used by the Biden administration. It’s basically meaningless,” Duss said. “What has been missing all along in the Democratic Party’s approach is consequences for human rights abuses when Israel commits them.”

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