While pro-Palestinian demonstrators call Joe Biden genocidal for his support for Israel against Hamas, Republicans criticize him for not giving Benyamin Netanyahu carte blanche. He must be doing something right.
This week, while his opponent listened to a porn actress recount the details of her meeting with him, Joe Biden navigated the pitfalls of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
The challenge is daunting: what to do with a Netanyahu government that has lost all sense of moderation in its response to the horrific Hamas attacks on October 7?
Support Israel at all costs?
Biden has already paid dearly for his support of Israel, as protests against the war in Gaza rage on college campuses (see the number of the week).
One would believe that it was this pressure that motivated him to threaten Netanyahu with limiting the supply of heavy weapons if Israeli forces use them against civilians in Rafah.
This is unlikely to satisfy pro-Palestinian activists or his Republican opponents. The latter are playing petty politics by characterizing any criticism of Netanyahu’s hardline approach as anti-Semitism or an abandonment of United States support for Israel. Senator Ted Cruz even called the Biden administration the most anti-Israel in history.
It’s ridiculous. Limiting Netanyahu’s worst excesses is neither anti-Semitic nor anti-Israel.
The pro-Palestinian activists who chanted “F… Joe Biden” in unison with Trumpists in Alabama last week will not vote for Biden and probably never considered doing so, even though Trump’s positions on Gaza are even more intransigent.
The specter of 1968
The Republicans have an interest in the conflict and demonstrations continuing. Their dream would be a repeat of 1968, when protests against the Vietnam War created immense social disruption and transformed the Democratic convention in Chicago into a gigantic theater of confrontation that paved the way to the White House for Nixon.
The Democratic convention will still be in Chicago this summer and there are fears of some unrest, but it will not reach the scale of 1968. On the campuses where the demonstrations are concentrated, the vast majority of students first wish to complete their session in peace. If the Vietnam War was a very present reality for young people in 1968, the same cannot be said of the conflict in Gaza.
Those looking for short-term electoral motivations to explain Biden’s action are wrong. The only electorally advantageous option for Biden is one that could prevent this conflict from becoming even more catastrophic than it already is and the last vestiges of a chance to approach lasting peace in the region disappear.
Number of the week
Pro-Palestinian demonstration on the campus of Columbia University in New York.
Getty Images via AFP
2700+
The number of people arrested recently on around sixty American university campuses, as part of pro-Palestinian demonstrations (New York Times , May 9, 2024). These events have been compared to protests against the Vietnam War in 1968, notably at Columbia University (New York Times April 18, 2024), but these were much more significant and the police repression more violent.
Quote of the week
“I was clear with Bibi (Benyamin Netanyahu) and his war cabinet: They will not have our support if they decide to attack these population centers (in Rafah).” – Joe Biden, in interview with CNN, May 8.
Lie detector
What he said:
“No other president has had the success we have had in creating jobs and reducing inflation. It was at 9% when I took office…” – Joe Biden, in interview with CNN on May 8.
FAKE
Inflation did not reach 9% until June 2022, 17 months after he was sworn in (Federal Reserve data). In his defense, several causes of inflation (including the pandemic) were beyond his control and the rate has fallen faster in the United States than elsewhere since 2022. However, a significant part of the public blames Biden for the inflation and this kind of error will not help to change their minds.
