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Opinion Biden’s Gaza policy is likely to cost him the election

A stance such as that of Biden on Israel would be electoral suicide, according to Dr Laurence Davis.

JOE BIDEN’S GAZA policy is likely to cost him the presidential election in November.  Polling, electoral and historical evidence all point overwhelmingly to a likely Biden defeat. 

Let’s consider the evidence.

First, in 2020 Biden was able to win over the so-called ‘Obama voters’, namely young voters, voters of colour, and college-educated women voters. Since Israel’s invasion of Gaza, however, all these demographics have become increasingly critical of Biden’s one-sided support for Israel. 

According to an NBC poll conducted in November, 70 per cent of American voters aged 18 to 34 said they disapproved of Biden’s handling of the conflict. Similarly, a New York Times poll published in December found that 46 per cent of voters between the ages of eighteen and 29 strongly disapproved of his Israel-Palestine policy.

In consequence, whereas exit polls in 2020 indicated that Biden won among voters under 30 by more than 20 percentage points, recent surveys show the president competitive with or in some cases trailing Trump among young people. 

Polls among people of colour show a similar declining trend. Moreover, all these findings correlate with more recent, general polling results. According to a major Reuters poll published at the end of March, a majority (55 per cent) of all Americans currently disapprove of Israel’s military action in Gaza and 75 per cent of Democrats now disapprove of Biden’s handling of the conflict.

All in the swing

Second, Biden is rapidly losing support in precisely those ‘swing states’ that were crucial to his victory in 2020. In Michigan, a three-week grassroots campaign urging voters to protest Biden’s Gaza policy by voting ‘uncommitted’ on the Democratic primary ballot was a surprise success.

‘Uncommitted’ came second in the tally with 13 per cent of the vote, totalling over 100,000 votes in a state vital to Biden’s electoral success, one which he won in 2020 by less than 155,000 votes when his approval ratings were significantly higher and those now protesting him were leading grassroots campaigns to get him elected.  

hamtramck-michigan-usa-25th-feb-2024-two-days-ahead-of-michigans-presidential-primary-election-a-rally-in-this-heavily-arab-american-city-urges-a-vote-for-uncommitted-instead-of-for-joe-biden

A half-dozen other Super Tuesday states saw a similar protest vote against Biden, notably including North Carolina, in which more than 12 per cent of voters selected ‘no preference’.

The ‘uninstructed’ vote in the key electoral battleground state of Wisconsin was 10 times larger than it was in 2020 and almost double Biden’s narrow margin of victory over Trump there four years ago. Similar campaigns are now gathering pace throughout the nation.

History repeats

Third, US politics has a historical precedent for what is happening now. In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson was widely regarded as a relatively progressive liberal president in domestic terms, respected by many (and reviled by others) for his Great Society and Civil Rights Act legislative successes. However, his disastrous decision to support America’s devastating carpet bombing of Vietnam until the very last month of the 1968 election campaign sparked widespread anti-war protests, which divided Democratic voters and ultimately resulted in the shock election victory of Richard Nixon. 

president-lyndon-b-johnson-oval-office-meets-with-civil-rights-leaders-martin-luther-king-jr-whitney-young-james-farmer-18-january-1964-in-the-oval-office-white-house-washington-dc-usa President Lyndon B. Johnson, Oval Office, meets with Civil Rights leaders Martin Luther King, Jr., Whitney Young, James Farmer 18 January 1964. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

All of which raises the question: why, then, hasn’t Biden listened to those of his fellow Democrats who have been urging him to stop enabling Israel’s ongoing destruction of Gaza, which the International Court of Justice determined could plausibly amount to genocide, and which has so far resulted in the deaths of over 30,000 Gazans, including more than 13,000 children according to UNICEF, and the onset of a famine that is placing at grave risk the lives of over one million people?  

A similar question was put to me at a recent public seminar on the US presidential election, held at University College Cork. The questioner inquired how it was that a politician as experienced as Biden could continue down the apparently politically suicidal path that he has.

In responding to this question, I recalled my experience in the mid-1980s as a young Legislative Aide to the junior Democratic Senator from West Virginia, John D. Rockefeller IV. Biden was then a member of the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee, with a reputation for being one of Israel’s strongest and most ardent supporters. Indeed, while in public Biden professed neutrality regarding Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, then Israeli prime minister Menachim Begin later revealed that during a closed-door Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting Biden expressed even more enthusiasm about the invasion than had Begin. 

Throughout his political career, Biden has been guided by an instinctive sympathy for Israel, coupled with what some have described as a striking incuriosity about and lack of sympathy with Palestinians. The result is that he has always prioritised providing Israel with unconditional military, economic and diplomatic support. Recent shifts in rhetoric in the wake of Israel’s killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers trying to bring food to the starving do not change that at all. 

Will he listen?

Is it possible that Biden may change course before it is too late to do so? Yes, and for the sake of the future of democracy in the United States and beyond, I very much hope so. But sober examination of the available evidence leads me to believe it is much more likely that Biden will dig in and continue to attempt to shield Israel from international accountability for as long as he possibly can, gambling that disaffected voters will return to the Biden fold in November rather than see the victory of an even more unsympathetic Donald Trump. 

Protests will continue to grow, including embarrassingly at major fundraising events, and Biden’s handlers will not be able to keep the protesters out of the public eye. Nevertheless, like Lear in Shakespeare’s great tragedy King Lear, or Captain Ahab in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, Biden will disregard the voices of those who are urging him to change course, for his own sake as well as for the sake of peace and humanity. As in 1968, the result will be a Democratic defeat, and in January 2025 a now vengeful and openly authoritarian Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the 47th President of a deeply divided United States of America. 

Dr Laurence Davis is Senior Lecturer in Government and Politics at University College Cork and Director of its MSc International Public Policy and Diplomacy.

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    Mute Robert Halvey
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    Apr 12th 2024, 7:55 AM

    Between local and EU elections here in June and the US elections in November, We are going to have a fair idea what way the west is thinking

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    Mute Sean Money
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    Apr 12th 2024, 8:31 AM

    Sure look it he has to back Israel, we need them supported in the region with Iran up to no good. All this cobblers from Harris now going on about Palestine is shocking, he needs to get his own house in order and the Irish people.

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    Mute Brendan O'Brien
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    Apr 12th 2024, 8:36 AM

    @Sean Money: He doesn’t ‘have to’ facilitate genocide on Israel’s part. That is very, very wrong.

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    Mute ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere
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    Apr 12th 2024, 9:27 AM

    @Sean Money: If there is such a thing as a Good Side in that region, then it is Iran.

    If we really must pick sides, then Iran is a far better side than Saudi Arabia, or Israel.

    Islamic terrorism comes from Saudi Arabia, not Iran. It is Saudi Arabia that has funded all those extremist Wahhabi schools throughout the world.
    Not Iran.
    It is Saudi Arabia that supported Al Qaeda and ISIS.
    Not Iran.

    Iran is the regional power that is standing against Saudi extremism, and Saudi oppression, such as what it is doing in Yemen.

    And we must not forget that Iran had a fledgling democracy until overthrown by the US and the UK to install the despotic Shah, so they could have access to Iranian oil under their conditions, which led to where we are today.

    Iran did not make an enemy of the US, of the West; The US made an enemy of Iran.

    And as it was the US who did wrong – the wrongs that led to where we are now – it is up to the US to put those wrongs right.

    That is not to say that Iran is anywhere near where we would like to see it. But that is “our” fault – if we include ourselves in ‘The West’ – and we should do what we can to bring Iran back onside.
    And we could do worse than ostracising the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

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    Mute Mike B
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    Apr 12th 2024, 9:49 AM

    @ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: all that Saudi oil money has to go somewhere

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    Mute Tom D
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    Apr 12th 2024, 10:07 AM

    @ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: How naive. The regime in Iran is bent on regional and global domination under the banner of fundamentalist shiite Islam. This is what they themselves say. They’ve cleverly set up, funded and direct regional proxies all over the Middle East to gain regional dominance and have terror cells all over the West. What’s positive is that Iranian society is very impressive and there is a lot of internal dissent against the current regime. If the regime gets toppled at some point, its likely Iran will become a modern moderate state. The issue is that the regime has set up a very complex system of internal control that brutally stamps out all internal resistance.

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    Mute Tom Newell
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    Apr 12th 2024, 11:42 AM

    @Sean Money: Id rather not back a nuclear armed Israel with a lunatic leader who thinks hes the jewish george bush and can do as he pleases cos hes fighting a supposed war on terror by trying to wipe out palestine…we have enough blood on our hands from doing this with saudi arabia with yemen

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    Mute ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere
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    Apr 12th 2024, 12:24 PM

    @Tom D: Islam has 2 main factions – Shia and Sunni.

    A bit like Roman Catholicism and Protestantism in Christianity.

    Sunni and Shia do not get on with each other, to put it mildly.

    The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is the center of Sunni Islam. Iran is the center of Shia Islam.

    All of the Islamic terrorist groups and organisations that have attacked Western countries or have been active in the Middle East and North and Eastern Africa are Sunni (Al Qaeda, ISIS/ISIL, Boko Haram), and are backed by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), not Iran.

    Not a single terrorist attack on a Western nation has been conducted by a Shia group.

    (Although Shia backed groups have defended themselves from attacks by Western forces or Western backed forces, particularly Israel and the US, and have retaliated in some cases.)

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    Mute Sean Money
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    Apr 12th 2024, 1:17 PM

    @Roy Dowling: Iran have been funding and instigating Hamas and other terrorists for years, Israel are defending themselves you cannot dispute that now.

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    Mute Sean Money
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    Apr 12th 2024, 1:21 PM

    @ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: it really makes you wonder how they can stage a world cup after funding terrorism for years. Its not right and should not be held in KSA.

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    Apr 12th 2024, 2:11 PM

    @Roy Dowling: You’s think Sean was American, he knows so little but think he knows so much.

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    Mute Sean Money
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    Apr 12th 2024, 2:17 PM

    @Roy Dowling: I tell you, hamas run the West Bank and the people there support them blindly, much to detrement as they will never achieve anything with their terrorist actions. Israel has no choice but to occupy the west bank flush them out.

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    Mute Michael McSharry
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    Apr 12th 2024, 5:47 PM

    @Sean Money: Hamas was set up by Israel as a way of keeping the Palestinian people divided. Netinyahu helped fund it until it got out of his control. He defended supporting Hamas right up to the Oct 7th barbaric invasion of Israel by Hamas. He also supported Quatar donating money to Gaza to help the people there. This was done under the supervision of Israeli government officials. I don’t know if Iran was also supporting Hamas but if it was it was not alone as I have pointed out here.

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    Mute brendan C5
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    Apr 12th 2024, 9:42 AM

    Along with pumping billions into Ukraine while infrastructure back home is falling apart and the southern border is wide open don’t forget that Mr biased opinion man.

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    Mute Diarmuid Hunt
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    Apr 12th 2024, 1:15 PM

    @brendan C5: Who blocked funding for the border?

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    Apr 12th 2024, 4:17 PM

    @Diarmuid Hunt: I don’t give a fiddler’s who runs that country, I just want balanced reporting by the media. Not the way they have been reporting the news the last 30 or so years to the point we’re at today.

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    Apr 12th 2024, 6:37 PM

    @brendan C5: I would prefer truthful reporting over balanced reporting (depending on your definition of balanced) but that has nothing to do with the fact that you’ve blamed lack of improvement on the southern US border on Biden while it was Republicans who blocked the last round of funding. News became ‘infotainment’ a long time ago, it’s not right, but trying to say a US president hasn’t been putting billions into infrastructure when it’s obvious he has won’t help that.

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    Mute Setanta O'Toole
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    Apr 12th 2024, 9:47 AM

    Do the american electorate think Trump’s will be any different? Will be the same if not worse minus even a veneer of attempted diplomacy.

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    Mute Mary.E.
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    Apr 13th 2024, 12:08 AM

    @Setanta O’Toole:
    Maybe the whole presidential election should be postponed until they can find two applicants who are under 78,and who are of reasonable mind.

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    Mute Ed Ruttledge
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    Apr 13th 2024, 3:58 AM

    @Setanta O’Toole: the American electorate does not think. Too busy buying ammo.

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    Mute Gerald Kelleher
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    Apr 12th 2024, 10:25 AM

    What is called liberal democracies are often academic-driven politics that use politicians to promote and protect their agendas.

    There is no reason that prejudice should exist if the academic community acknowledges the only biological distinction within humanity is between male and female rather than ‘races’ along with invalid terms like racial, racism and so on.

    The academic community could inform society that climate covers many research areas, and the idea that it can be railroaded into long-term weather is a modelling indulgence.

    Commenters tend to give politicians a hard time and give the academic community a free pass despite the influence of the latter on the former. The imbalance between social and academic politics is unhealthy.

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    Mute Robert Bell
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    Apr 12th 2024, 8:21 AM

    Lets hope so.

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    Mute Ian Richmond
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    Apr 12th 2024, 8:45 AM

    Iraqi Kurdistan has been and probably still is supplying Israel with oil to carry out its war and normal usage.Despite the Iraqi Baghdadi government making any dealings(even personal friendships)with Israel/Israelis a capital crime.The Iraqi Erbil government and its territory are now in danger of nuclear conflict and ground attack from Iran which could easily involve Syria.Iraqi Kurdistan is a Christian refuge and the Baghdadi government have recently repaired the an oil supply route avoiding all Kurdistani territory.Its def con one almost over there and this is because Israel went genocidal on a smallarea that should of been given to Egypt decades ago.

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    Mute Ian Richmond
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    Apr 12th 2024, 9:04 AM

    @Roy Dowling: Yes I agree wholeheartly Mr Dowling.And we ve now got Iran acting to end it.

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    Mute Ian Richmond
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    Apr 12th 2024, 12:46 PM

    I was in Iraq when this conflict began and visited Palestine after it occurred.So I m actually stating events from observation and analysis not sides or political loyalties.There is a good chance Iran will now make it a war ,the cull you mentioned being the catalyst for the escalation.There were anti-Western communications on social media the day the Hamas attack occurred in Iraq.

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    Mute Ian Richmond
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    Apr 12th 2024, 12:50 PM

    @Ian Richmond: So to continue.Sorry i m in a storm here.Israel should of been well aware that Iran would enter this conflict.Have they ignored their intelligence on events to now finally bring Iran into a full scale war?

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    Mute Michael McSharry
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    Apr 12th 2024, 6:08 PM

    @Ian Richmond: Israel both now and many times in the past has tried everything to get the US to go to war with Iran. All attempts have failed as the US does not see such a move as being in it’s or the region’s interests. Now Israel is going for broke bombing the Iranian consulate in Lebanon. The US will still not comply with Israel’s plan. Israel has said many times that it wants control of Palestinian land from the sea to the river Jordan because it wants control of the water flow the there for strategic reasons – climate change, it’s own population growth, the cost of it’s present reliance on desalinated water, it’s need to pretend it has all the bells and whistles of a western consumerist lifestyle with high demand for water ( golf courses etc.) in what is basically a desert area.

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    Mute Paul Keane
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    Apr 12th 2024, 12:48 PM

    Biden as an elderly man, going for office again would be literal suicide.

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