Palestinians and pro-Palestine allies brace for Trump

As Israel’s ongoing assault on the densely populated Gaza Strip intensified over the past year, so too did a nascent but quickly mobilized movement of pro-Palestinian activists. For them, the 2024 election offered a perfect forum to leverage their opposition to the war. Operating largely under the broad banner of the Uncommitted movement, activists and allies targeted predominantly Democratic lawmakers in the hopes that grassroots electoral pressure could shift the party’s support for the Israeli offensive. The movement also sought to endear themselves to voters who might otherwise sit out what they saw as a zero-sum choice between Donald Trump’s overt xenophobia and the Democrats’ permissive stance toward Israel.

It was a gamble that seems to have failed spectacularly. Not only has the Biden administration barely shifted from its staunch pro-Israel policies, but the incoming Trump administration has wasted little time positioning itself as even more hostile to pro-Palestinian activists both at home and abroad. As a result, many of those activists who strategically withheld their votes and endorsements for Vice President Kamala Harris must now grapple with the indirect consequences of those decisions. At the same time, the crisis in Gaza which animated them in the first place has continued unabated.