After nearly two years of stark divisions over the war in Gaza and support for Israel, Democrats are now finding themselves at odds over US policy toward Iran as progressives demand unified opposition to President Donald Trump’s consideration of a strike against Tehran’s nuclear program while party leaders tread more cautiously.
US leaders of all stripes have found common ground for two decades on the position that Iran cannot be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon. The longtime US foe has supported groups that have killed Americans across the Mideast and threatens to destroy Israel. But Trump’s public flirtation with joining Israel’s offensive against Iran may become the Democratic Party’s latest schism, just as it is sharply dividing Trump’s isolationist “Make America Great Again” base from more hawkish conservatives.
While progressives have staked out clear opposition to Trump’s potential actions, the party leadership is playing the safer ground of demanding a role for Congress before Trump could use force against Iran. Many prominent Democrats with 2028 presidential aspirations are staying silent, so far, on the Israel-Iran war.
“They are sort of hedging their bets,” said Joel Rubin, a former deputy assistant secretary of state who served under Democratic President Barack Obama and is now a strategist on foreign policy. “The beasts of the Democratic Party’s constituencies right now are so hostile to Israel’s war in Gaza that it’s really difficult to come out looking like one would corroborate an unauthorized war that supports Israel without blowback.”
Progressive Democrats use Trump’s ideas and words
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., has called Trump’s consideration of an attack “a defining moment for our party” and has introduced legislation with Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky, that calls on the Republican president to “terminate” the use of US armed forces against Iran unless “explicitly authorized” by a declaration of war from Congress.
Khanna used Trump’s own campaign arguments of putting American interests first when the congressman spoke to Theo Von, a comedian who has been supportive of the president and is popular in the “manosphere.”
“That’s going to cost this country a lot of money that should be being spent here at home,” said Khanna, who is said to be among the many Democrats eyeing the party’s 2028 primary.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who twice sought the Democratic presidential nomination, pointed to Trump’s stated goal during his inaugural speech of being known as “a peacemaker and a unifier.”
“Very fine words. Trump should remember them today. Supporting Netanyahu’s war against Iran would be a catastrophic mistake,” Sanders said about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Sanders has reintroduced legislation prohibiting the use of federal money for force against Iran, insisted that US military intervention would be unwise and illegal and accused Israel of striking unprovoked. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York signed on to a similar bill from Sanders in 2020, but he is so far holding off this time.
Some believe the party should stake out a clear anti-war stance as Trump weighs whether to launch a military offensive that is seemingly counter to the anti-interventionism he promised during his 2024 campaign.
“The leaders of the Democratic Party need to step up and loudly oppose war with Iran and demand a vote in Congress,” said Tommy Vietor, a former Obama aide, on X.
Mainstream Democrats are cautious, while critical
The staunch support from the Democratic administration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for Israel’s war against Hamas loomed over the party’s White House ticket in 2024, even with the criticism of Israel’s handling of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Trump exploited the divisions to make inroads with Arab American voters and Orthodox Jews on his way back to the White House.
Today, the Israel-Iran war is the latest test for a party struggling to repair its coalition before next year’s midterm elections and the quick-to-follow kickoff to the 2028 presidential race. Bridging the divide between an activist base that is skeptical of foreign interventions and already critical of US support for Israel and more traditional Democrats and independents who make up a sizable, if not always vocal, voting bloc.
In a statement after Israel’s first strikes, Schumer said Israel has a right to defend itself and “the United States’ commitment to Israel’s security and defense must be ironclad as they prepare for Iran’s response.”
Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nevada, was also cautious in responding to the Israeli action and said “the US must continue to stand with Israel, as it has for decades, at this dangerous moment.”
“It really seems like the Trump and Iran war track is kind of going along like a Formula 1 racetrack, and then the Democrats are in some sort of tricycle or something trying to keep up,” said Ryan Costello, a policy director for the Washington-based National Iranian American Council, which advocates for diplomatic engagement between US and Iran.
Other Democrats have condemned Israel’s strikes and accused Netanyahu of sabotaging nuclear talks with Iran. They are reminding the public that Trump withdrew in 2018 from a nuclear agreement that limited Tehran’s enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions negotiated during the Obama administration.
“Trump created the problem,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut, on X. “The single reason Iran was so close to obtaining a nuclear weapon is that Trump destroyed the diplomatic agreement that put major, verifiable constraints on their nuclear program.”
The progressives’ pushback
A Pearson Institute/Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll from September 2024 found that about half of Democrats said the US was being “too supportive” of Israel and about 4 in 10 said their level support was “about right.” Democrats were more likely than independents and Republicans to say the Israeli government had “a lot” of responsibility for the continuation of the war between Israel and Hamas.
About 6 in 10 Democrats and half of Republicans felt Iran was an adversary with whom the US was in conflict.
Democratic Rep. Yassamin Ansari, an Iranian American from Arizona, said Iranians are unwitting victims in the conflict because there aren’t shelters or infrastructure to protect civilians from targeted missiles as there are in Israel.
“The Iranian people are not the regime, and they should not be punished for its actions,” Ansari posted on X, while criticizing Trump for fomenting fear among the Iranian population. “The Iranian people deserve freedom from the barbaric regime, and Israelis deserve security.”
Democrats are at odds over the Israel-Iran war as Trump considers intervening
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Democrats are at odds over the Israel-Iran war as Trump considers intervening
- Many prominent Democrats with 2028 presidential aspirations are staying silent, so far, on the Israel-Iran war
French court overturns town’s burkini ban after woman threatened with fines
- The seaside town of Carry-le-Rouet had implemented the ban in June 2024
- The ban was largely irrelevant until July 2, when an 18-year-old Muslim woman from the city of Marseille went to the town’s beach
LONDON: The Marseilles administrative court has reversed a burkini ban on a French Riviera beach after police threatened fines against a teenager and her family for wearing the Muslim swimsuit, The Times reported on Thursday.
The seaside town of Carry-le-Rouet had implemented the ban in June 2024, but it was found by the court to be a “serious and illegal breach of fundamental freedoms” following the incident.
The ban was largely irrelevant until July 2, when an 18-year-old Muslim woman from the city of Marseille went to the town’s beach.
Two municipal officers spotted her in the sea and ordered her out using whistles. Her family asked what she had done wrong, and the officers said the woman’s garment was “not acceptable,” according to her brother Islan.
The police called for reinforcements. Five gendarmes who arrived later threatened the 18-year-old with fines unless she and her family left the beach.
Islan said the family then left the area. “My sister has taken it badly,” he added. “She is afraid to go out now, does not communicate with other people and avoids talking about what happened.”
The incident led to the Human Rights League seeking a court order overturning the town’s burkini ban.
Over the past decade, about 20 towns and cities on the French coast, including Cannes, have tried to ban the Muslim swimsuit on secular grounds, though almost all the bans were denied or later overturned.
In 2004, France banned Muslim headscarves in schools after MPs decided that the garment violates the secular values of the state education system.
Niqabs and burqas were outlawed in public in 2011 based on concerns that criminals could conceal their identities using the religious garbs.
Protester in UK threatened with arrest by armed police over Palestinian flag
- Laura Murton, 42, held signs saying ‘Free Gaza’ and ‘Israel is committing genocide’
- Amnesty International UK describes footage of incident as ‘very concerning’
LONDON: British armed police threatened a peaceful protester with arrest under the Terrorism Act after accusing her of supporting Palestine Action, the activist group that was banned earlier this month.
Laura Murton, 42, held signs saying “Free Gaza” and “Israel is committing genocide” at the demonstration in the city of Canterbury, The Guardian reported on Thursday.
Officers told her that she had expressed views supporting Palestine Action. Neither of the signs held by Murton mentioned the group by name.
Murton, who filmed her encounter with the armed police officers, asked whether she supported any banned groups and replied: “I do not.”
One officer told her: “Mentioning freedom of Gaza, Israel, genocide, all of that — all come under proscribed groups, which are terror groups that have been dictated by the government.” He added that the phrase “Free Gaza” expressed support for Palestine Action.
The government’s proscription of the group means it is an offense to express support for it and is punishable by law.
The officer accused Murton of committing that offense, and said she would be arrested unless she provided her name and address, which she did.
Murton told The Guardian: “I don’t see how anything I was wearing, how anything I was displaying, anything I was saying, could be deemed as supportive of the proscribed group.
“It’s terrifying. I was standing there thinking, this is the most authoritarian, dystopian experience I’ve had in this country, being told that I’m committing terrorist offenses by two guys with firearms.
“I ended up giving my details, and I really resent the fact I had to do that because I don’t think that was lawful at all.”
Lawyer’s representing Palestine Action’s co-founder, Huda Ammori, said in court submissions that the group’s proscription would likely produce a “wide chilling effect on speech and assembly of those seeking to speak out against Israel’s serious violations of international law.”
One of the officers who confronted Murton said: “We could have jumped out, arrested you, dragged you off in a van.” The police were “trying to be fair” in dealing with her, he added.
Murton said she was motivated to protest because “day to day, people are getting killed (in Gaza), and I can’t handle that … I can’t handle sitting and doing nothing.”
Amnesty International UK’s law and human rights director, Tom Southerden, described the footage as “very concerning.”
He added: “We have long criticized UK terrorism law for being excessively broad and vaguely worded and a threat to freedom of expression. This video documents one aspect of exactly the kind of thing we were warning about.”
Magnitude 5.8 earthquake hits off Indonesia’s East Nusa Tenggara
JAKARTA: A magnitude 5.8 earthquake hit off Indonesia’s East Nusa Tenggara province on Thursday, with a 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) depth and no tsunami potential, the country’s geophysics agency said.
There were no immediate reports of damage.
Taliban deny arresting or monitoring Afghans after UK data leak
- The Taliban government said Thursday it had not arrested or monitored Afghans involved in a secret British resettlement plan
KABUL: The Taliban government said Thursday it had not arrested or monitored Afghans involved in a secret British resettlement plan after a data breach was revealed this week.
Thousands of Afghans who worked with the UK were brought to Britain with their families in a secret program after a 2022 data breach put their lives at risk, the British government revealed on Tuesday.
The scheme was only revealed after the UK High Court on Tuesday lifted a super-gag order banning any reports of the events.
UK Defense Minister John Healey said the leak was not revealed because of the risk that the Taliban authorities would obtain the data set and the lives of Afghans would be put at risk.
“Nobody has been arrested for their past actions, nobody has been killed and nobody is being monitored for that,” said the Afghan government’s deputy spokesman, Hamdullah Fitrat, in a voice message to reporters on Thursday.
“Reports of investigation and monitoring of a few people whose data has been leaked are false.”
After the Taliban swept back to power in 2021, their Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada announced an amnesty for Afghans who worked for NATO forces or the ousted foreign-backed government during the two-decade conflict.
“We don’t need to use the leaked documents from Britain. Regarding the general amnesty, nobody is investigated or monitored,” Fitrat added.
“The rumors being spread are just to scare these people and create fear and worry among their families, which we deny.”
France court orders release of Lebanese militant after four decades in prison
PARIS: A French appeals court Thursday ordered the release of pro-Palestinian Lebanese militant Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, who has been imprisoned for 40 years for the 1982 killings of two foreign diplomats.
Abdallah, 74, is one of the longest serving prisoners in France, where most convicts serving life sentences are freed after less than 30 years.
He has been up for release for 25 years, but the United States — a civil party to the case — has consistently opposed his leaving prison.
Abdallah was sentenced to life in prison in 1987 for his involvement in the murders of US military attache Charles Robert Ray and Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov.
He has always insisted he is a “fighter” who battled for the rights of Palestinians and not a “criminal.”
The Paris Appeals Court ordered he be freed from a prison in the south of France next week, on Friday, July 25, on the condition that he leave French territory and never return.
Several sources before the hearing said that it was planned for him to be flown to Paris and then to Beirut.
Lebanese authorities have repeatedly said Abdallah should be freed from jail, and had written to the appeals court to say they would organize his return home.
The detainee’s brother, Robert Abdallah, in Lebanon told AFP he was overjoyed.
“We’re delighted. I didn’t expect the French judiciary to make such a decision nor for him to ever be freed, especially after so many failed requests for release,” he said.
“For once, the French authorities have freed themselves from Israeli and US pressures,” he added.
Prosecutors can file an appeal with France’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, but it is not expected to be processed fast enough to halt his release next week.
Abdallah’s lawyer Jean-Louis Chalanset also welcomed the decision.
“It’s both a judicial victory and a political scandal that he was not released earlier,” he said.
In November last year, a French court ordered his release conditional on Abdallah leaving France.
But France’s anti-terror prosecutors, arguing that he had not changed his political views, appealed the decision, which was consequently suspended.
A verdict was supposed to have been delivered in February, but the Paris appeals court postponed, saying it was unclear whether Abdallah had proof that he had paid compensation to the plaintiffs, something he has consistently refused to do.
The court re-examined the latest request for his release last month.
During the closed-door hearing, Abdallah’s lawyer told the judges that 16,000 euros had been placed on the prisoner’s bank account and were at the disposal of civil parties in the case, including the United States.
Abdallah still enjoys some support from several public figures in France, including left-wing members of parliament and Nobel prize-winning author Annie Ernaux, but has mostly been forgotten by the general public.
