About the congressmen who skipped, I have a pessimistic view of the bolded line. The line from Bernie (
who is extremely on the left of the rest of the senate on this) has focused on Netanyahu's personal culpability, his personal extreme-right nature, etc. I saw a few other statements and they all focus on him. It's a start, but it's about 20 years in the past. Bibi's views on Palestine are the centre of Israeli politics, not the right. Bibi is also somebody who personally snubbed the Democratic party repeatedly, including, in public, from the same podium, their previous president. I'm not sure this ratio of withdrawal, or support for a (redefined in an Orwellian way) ceasefire, would have held up under a less personally noxious Israeli leader.
And to back up my impression that this is about Bibi and not a ceasefire, almost all the senators and a majority of the House reps who skipped, voted to fund Israel with billions in weapons this April.
For the second part: Simultaneously yesterday, there was an absolutely Gandhian* protest within the Capitol by JVP. They filed in, sat, and were duly arrested, including family members of some of the Israeli hostages. They got little publicity outside already-committed social media, made no impact, and weren't mentioned or singled out for praise by the president, VP, or anyone else. Do you think that protest would have made any politician change their minds? Quake in their boots? Get persuaded? In general, there have been a lot of protests for Palestine -much, much larger ones - that didn't have the scenes from yesterday. I don't see them moving the needle on an ongoing genocide a single bit. The vote totals from Congress for weapons sales are proof of that.
The analogy with Biden stepping down is interesting, but for me doesn't work. There was a vested interest there - power - which doesn't apply here. Keeping BIden at the top was a guaranteed loss of the White House and was very likely going to also be a bloodbath in the House.
Withdrawing support for this genocide would mean the full weight of the Israel lobby and overwhelming majority of the media would immediately try to end you. And in terms of voters among the Democratic base, you can gain some young voters and Arabs who consider this important enough to not vote, while losing some older Jewish voters who might defect if policy is changed. Just because a majority of the country is pro-ceasefire, that doesn't make it a frightening political constituency, because they have no financial or institutional leverage and limited electoral leverage. Swapping out Biden for Harris also helps avoid this issue, because enough young voters are flaky and aesthetic-driven that the same policy from her could be tolerable or ignored by them.
I agree that the upward trajectory for Israel support among the US public and politicians is over, but the downward trajectory is slow, and I don't see it moving before Israel has finished whatever pacification it thinks is enough.
In the meantime there is an ongoing genocide. As I said in the Palestine thread, the only (inadequate) force standing in the way of that genocide is Hamas. Iranian-made Hamas RPGs have stopped more Israeli tanks that protesters, the ICC, ICJ, the UN, though of course they cannot keep up with the weapons replenishment rate from the US, Germany, and India. What we're left with in these protests is impotent rage.
*A tangent: whatever success Gandhi achieved wasn't just because tens of thousands passively getting thrashed and arrested or passively shot dead - it was because the strategy was non-cooperation and civil disobedience on a massive scale. Resigning govt jobs, boycott of foreign goods, refusing to pay taxes, breaking unjust laws, general strikes, etc, all on a nationwide scale. And there was often violence accompanying such a massive movement, including burning govt buildings and destroying telegraph and train lines.
