Case Study 2: The American Policy Debate over the Israel–Gaza War, 2023–2026

A note before the case

This case study examines the American policy debate about the Israel-Gaza war. It does not adjudicate the underlying conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, the just-war questions about specific Israeli or Hamas actions, or the historical and theological disputes over land, sovereignty, and rights of return. Those questions are beyond the scope of this textbook and are debated in dedicated literatures.

What the chapter does present is the question that an American government textbook is properly equipped to discuss: what should U.S. policy be? That question implicates institutions (Congress, the executive, the bureaucracy), traditions (the foreign-policy traditions discussed earlier), partisan dynamics (the unusual coalition cleavages this conflict has produced inside both parties), and constitutional questions (war powers, foreign assistance, executive authority). On the policy debate, the chapter applies the steel-manning discipline. American patriots disagree about what U.S. policy should be, with substantive arguments on each side.

The case

On October 7, 2023, Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing approximately 1,200 people (the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust) and taking approximately 250 hostages back into Gaza. Israel responded with an extended military campaign in Gaza, which expanded at various phases to operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, against the Houthis in Yemen, into Syria, and into direct exchanges of strikes with Iran in 2024 and 2025. Civilian casualties in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry's reported figures (debated by various analysts), reached the tens of thousands by 2025; physical infrastructure was extensively destroyed; humanitarian conditions deteriorated severely.

The U.S. government's response combined: continued large-scale military aid to Israel (which has been a longstanding feature of the bilateral relationship, codified through 10-year Memoranda of Understanding, the most recent of which provides $3.8 billion per year in security assistance through 2028, with substantial supplementals since October 2023); active diplomatic engagement aimed at ceasefires, hostage releases, and humanitarian access; periodic friction over specific weapons transfers and over Israeli conduct of the campaign; and substantial intra-administration and intra-party debate.

This case study walks through the major elements of the U.S. policy response, the partisan and intra-party dynamics, and the steel-manned positions of the principal American camps.

The institutional response

Military aid. Long-standing U.S.-Israel security assistance under the 10-year MOUs, supplemented by emergency appropriations after October 7. The aid has included Iron Dome interceptor replenishment, precision-guided munitions, and conventional weaponry. Specific transfers have at times been subject to internal debate (the Biden administration paused certain shipments of large-payload bombs in mid-2024 over concerns about civilian-casualty risks in densely populated areas; Trump-2 reversed certain Biden-era conditions in 2025).

Diplomatic engagement. The Biden administration prioritized hostage-release and ceasefire negotiations, working with Egypt and Qatar as mediators with Hamas. Multiple ceasefire frameworks were proposed; partial deals were achieved (notably an exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners in November 2023, and subsequent partial agreements). The Trump-2 administration has continued diplomatic engagement with shifts in approach.

Defense of Israel against Iranian strikes. The unprecedented Iranian large-scale missile and drone attack on Israel in April 2024 was largely intercepted, with significant U.S. military participation in the air defense operation; subsequent Iranian and Israeli strikes have been more limited. U.S. carrier strike groups have been deployed to the eastern Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf at various points to deter regional escalation.

Operations against the Houthis. Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, beginning in late 2023, prompted U.S. and UK strikes against Houthi positions in Yemen (Operation Poseidon Archer and successors). The Houthis' framing was solidarity with Gaza; the strikes were initially conducted under presidential authority without new congressional authorization.

The partisan and intra-party dynamics

This conflict has produced unusually crosscutting coalitions in American politics, which makes the policy debate harder to map onto standard left-right framing.

Inside the Democratic Party. The traditional pro-Israel position remained held by most Democratic elected officials, particularly in older cohorts and in coalition with Jewish-American constituencies. A growing progressive wing — particularly visible in younger Democrats, on college campuses, and in members of "the Squad" (Reps. Tlaib, Omar, Bowman, Bush, AOC, Pressley) and aligned figures — pushed for conditioning aid, calling for ceasefires earlier, and questioning the unconditional U.S. military relationship with Israel. The internal split was visible in primary challenges in 2024 (Bowman and Bush both lost primaries that featured Israel-related ad spending), in college-campus protest waves, and in the Democratic National Convention's debate over platform language.

Inside the Republican Party. Strong support for Israel remained the dominant position, anchored in evangelical Christian Zionism, Jewish-Republican voters, and the broader conservative pro-Israel tradition. A small "America First" / non-interventionist wing (Reps. Gaetz, Massie, some others) questioned U.S. involvement in Middle Eastern conflicts on burden-sharing and constitutional grounds. The mainstream Republican position has remained pro-Israel and has criticized Biden-era conditions on weapons transfers; the Trump-2 administration has been broadly aligned with Israeli government positions while also pursuing diplomatic openings.

Inside the Trump-2 administration. Continuity with strong U.S.-Israel security cooperation; reversal of certain Biden-era conditions on weapons; pursuit of Abraham-Accords-style normalization (notably with Saudi Arabia, complicated by the war); periodic friction over specific Israeli decisions where the administration has urged restraint. The administration's positioning has resisted simple ideological categorization.

The American positions, steel-manned

The chapter's discipline requires presenting the strongest version of each principal position. Two camps dominate the American debate; both have substantive grounds.

The pro-Israel American position

Strongest version. Israel is the United States' closest democratic ally in the Middle East and has been since its founding. The U.S.-Israel relationship rests on shared democratic values, intelligence and security cooperation that benefits both countries, and a moral commitment that emerged from the Holocaust and the long history of antisemitism. October 7 was an unprovoked terrorist attack of unprecedented scale and brutality; the moral and legal right of self-defense is unambiguous. Hamas's stated goal — articulated in its 1988 covenant and in subsequent statements — includes the destruction of Israel; a state cannot live indefinitely with such a threat on its border, and any post-October-7 Israeli government would have responded with sustained military operations.

The civilian-casualty figures, while genuine humanitarian tragedies, must be evaluated against the operational reality that Hamas has fought from densely populated areas, used civilian infrastructure (schools, hospitals, mosques) for military purposes, and bears legal responsibility under the law of armed conflict for the resulting civilian harm in mixed environments. The Israeli military's procedures (warnings, targeting reviews, evacuations) compare favorably to other militaries operating in urban combat. Conditioning U.S. aid on specific tactical decisions interferes with sovereign Israeli operational judgment and undermines the strategic relationship.

The regional security architecture — including the Abraham Accords, deterrence of Iran, and the broader U.S. Middle East posture — depends on demonstrated U.S. reliability as a partner. Wavering on Israel signals to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other Sunni Gulf partners that the United States is an unreliable ally; that signal has costs across the region.

Leading voices. Most of the established U.S. foreign-policy elite (Brookings, AIPAC, the centrist establishment); most evangelical Christian organizations; the mainstream Republican Party; majorities of Democratic congressional leaders.

The pro-Palestinian American position

Strongest version. The humanitarian situation in Gaza — civilian deaths in the tens of thousands, mass displacement, infrastructure destruction, food insecurity reaching famine in parts of Gaza — has been disproportionate, regardless of the moral case for self-defense after October 7. The principle of proportionality in international humanitarian law is a constraint on military operations even in justified wars; the scale of civilian harm in Gaza raises serious questions under that principle that the U.S. should not be financing or arming.

Beyond the immediate war, U.S. support for Israeli policy under successive Israeli governments — particularly the long-standing settlement expansion in the West Bank that most international authorities (including, historically, U.S. State Department legal positions) have considered illegal under international law — has made the United States a complicit party in policies that foreclose the two-state solution that has been formal U.S. policy for decades. The Israeli government's coalition (which has included parties advocating annexation of the West Bank and policies that deprive Palestinians of basic civil rights) is to the right of any prior Israeli government and the U.S. should be more conditional in its support.

The October 7 attack does not justify the obliteration of Palestinian civil society in Gaza; the moral and strategic costs of unconditional support are substantial. American taxpayers should not be financing operations that violate American values; conditioning aid on humanitarian compliance and on movement toward a political settlement is consistent with both U.S. interests (regional stability, alliance management with Arab partners) and U.S. values (rule of law, human rights).

Leading voices. Progressive members of Congress; civil-society organizations (J Street, IfNotNow, Jewish Voice for Peace from a Jewish-American perspective; CAIR, American Friends Service Committee, others); a growing share of younger Democratic voters; some libertarian non-interventionists; campus protest movements that emerged in 2023–2024.

Camps that resist easy left-right categorization

Realists. A serious realist position views U.S. interests in the Middle East as best served by stability and by avoiding entanglement in conflicts that are unlikely to be resolved by U.S. intervention. Mearsheimer and Walt's controversial 2007 book The Israel Lobby anticipates parts of this position (and was the subject of substantial controversy on its merits). Updated realist arguments emphasize that U.S. involvement in regional conflicts has been costly and has rarely produced durable settlements; that Iran is a more serious long-term challenge that requires regional partners (including Israel) but also requires U.S. flexibility; and that U.S. policy should focus on hard-power balance rather than on the moral framing on either side.

"America First" / non-interventionists. Skeptical of open-ended Middle East commitments; concerned about U.S. troop exposure (the loss of three U.S. service members at Tower 22 in Jordan in January 2024 reactivated this concern); attentive to escalation risks if U.S. support for Israel draws the U.S. into direct conflict with Iran. Some in this camp support Israel's right of self-defense while questioning the scale of U.S. involvement.

Progressives critical of both sides' worst arguments. Some progressive analysts have explicitly criticized both the unconditional pro-Israel framing and elements of the pro-Palestinian movement that have been associated with antisemitic rhetoric or with refusal to acknowledge October 7's horror. The instinct here is for nuance — supporting humanitarian aid, opposing settlements, supporting hostage release, opposing antisemitism, opposing collective punishment — that does not map onto either dominant camp.

What the case illustrates

Three takeaways.

First, on this issue partisan tribes do not predict positions. Some of the strongest pro-Israel voices in 2023–2026 are Republican; some are Democratic. Some of the strongest critics of Israeli operations are progressive Democrats; others are libertarian Republicans. Mapping the debate onto a left-right axis distorts more than it clarifies.

Second, the institutional picture is complex. Foreign assistance to Israel is statutory; the U.S.-Israel relationship is anchored in the MOU framework that pre-dates this conflict and runs through 2028. The President has substantial flexibility on specific weapons transfers, on diplomatic emphasis, on rhetoric, and on regional posture — but less flexibility on the underlying commitment, which would require statutory action to change. Critics who want the U.S. to do more (in either direction) need to engage with this institutional architecture.

Third, the chapter's discipline requires presenting both American camps with full force. The pro-Israel American position rests on substantive grounds: alliance commitments, October 7's nature, security cooperation, regional architecture, the unambiguous right of self-defense after a terrorist attack. The pro-Palestinian American position also rests on substantive grounds: humanitarian costs, proportionality concerns, settlement-policy concerns, the strategic costs of being seen as complicit in civilian harm, the gap between U.S. stated values and observed conduct. American patriots disagree on which considerations should dominate. The textbook's role is to present the disagreement, not to declare a winner.

What citizens can do with this case study is the work the textbook has been asking them to do throughout: read primary sources (the State Department's published statements, congressional testimony, the legal briefs in the various cases that have arisen, the public statements of Israeli and Palestinian leaders), identify which arguments rest on factual claims that can be checked, and steel-man the position they disagree with before reaching their own conclusion. The disagreement on this question is real, substantive, and unlikely to be resolved by a textbook author choosing a side. Citizens decide for themselves — but they decide best when they have understood the strongest version of each argument.

This case study, paired with Case Study 1, illustrates the discipline the chapter asks of its readers: substantive engagement with disagreements that matter, conducted in the steel-manning mode, without partisan adjudication.