Why Is the US Still Backing Israeli Genocide?

Interview by
Daniel Denvir

Over nine months since Hamas’s October 7 attack, Israel’s brutal campaign in Gaza continues with no end in sight. According to the latest estimates from Gaza’s health authorities, Israeli forces have killed more than 38,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children. The United States has steadfastly supported the war on Gaza, asserting Israel’s “right to defend itself” and providing the country with billions of dollars of military aid.

The past nine months have also seen an explosion of mass protest activity in the United States against Israel’s genocide and US support for it. Since October, this activity has taken various forms: massive street demonstrations, a campaign among Democratic primary voters to cast “uncommitted” ballots in opposition to President Joe Biden, and a frenzy of pro-Palestine campus activism that dominated news headlines and provoked fierce repression from university administrators and police. Yet the movement has not yet succeeded in shifting US policy toward Israel.

For Jacobin Radio podcast the Dig, Daniel Denvir sat down with Waleed Shahid, former spokesperson for Justice Democrats who served as a senior adviser for the uncommitted campaign, and Dylan Saba, a staff attorney with Palestine Legal and a contributing editor at Jewish Currents, to discuss the movement for Palestine in the United States and its prospects moving forward.

…