In early July, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and other influential progressives were convinced that they had secured a critical concession from Joe Biden’s campaign: For the first time, the Democratic Party platform would assert that Palestinians had a right to live free of foreign “occupation,” a scarcely veiled reference to Israel.
But days before a draft platform was released on July 15, the presumptive Democratic nominee personally weighed in, according to three sources familiar with the discussion, ordering his advisors not to include any reference to Israeli “occupation.” The decision, according to these sources, followed heavy last-minute lobbying by pro-Israel advocacy groups. Biden aides subsequently phoned progressive leaders and urged them to drop their demand to declare Israel an occupying power, arguing that the inclusion of the phrase threatened to undermine unity within the Democratic Party.
