Leading From Behind

At the top, support for Israel falters.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greets President Joe Biden upon his arrival at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport on October 18, 2023. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

Progressive hostility to Israel is a fact of political life.

The bodies of Hamas’ victims on October 7 of last year hadn’t cooled yet before that hostility began to express itself. So when Joe Biden resolved to back Israel in its counteroffensive in Gaza, he surely knew that doing so would end up costing him support on the far left.

He expected, I assume, that his policy would pay off by more than offsetting those losses with gains in the pro-Israel center. Nearly six months later, that hasn’t panned out for him:

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    The most depressing thing to me about this article was to see that once again a majority of Americans and both political parties are moving towards what I believe to be an immoral position in foreign policy: anti-American isolationism. Sadly, that includes friends of mine. The most immoral thing this country has done in my lifetime was our withdrawal from Afghanistan. One of the saddest aspects was to see that solid majorities of the country supported it, because our leaders had lost faith and had given up trying to explain what we were doing over there (i.e., we were doing the right thing).

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    Pterseus

    At some point our leaders stopped trying to galvanize support by making the case for policies to the American people. Instead, they follow polling and then use their pulpit to talk out of both sides of their mouths and/or rely on the media to gaslight everyone. It results in policy that is insane and devoid of any principle, which I guess is an expression of our entire society at this point.

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      Retired Prosecutor

      This comment is dead on accurate. I'm a supporter of Ukraine. Why hasn't Biden seized the bully pulpit and explained what is at stake for Americans there? That the Ukrainian military is stopping Putin's aggression for us without any American military involvement? That the alternative is to wait until Putin conquers Ukraine and then we may face the ominous responsibilities involved in NATO Article 5?

      Similarly, why not let us know why support for Israel is important, instead abandoning the field of public opinion to pro-Hamas progressives? And the Republicans are of course no better, indeed, possibly worse.

      When did our politicians give up on leadership and instead become ward heelers just trying to tot up every spare vote or simply preach to the base rather than attempting to change minds? When did our leaders instead become followers?

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    Gbr0wn

    It's obvious that Israel needs to quit dilly-dallying, grind Hamas to a pulp as quickly and cleanly as possible, and wrap it up

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  4. Scroop Moth

    Israel can kill the Edomites, Amelekites and Philistines without assistance.

    Ambiguity is what Israel deserves for not sticking out its neck to support Ukraine, which is in a real war of survival.

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    1. R Green

      If you make a statement like that then you don't understand the situation that Israel is in.

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  5. Bandrpeele

    Essential point: Biden is not in charge or making any of these decisions. His leftist handlers are willing to abandon the only reliable ally we have in the Middle East. They are doing this to curate a few thousand votes in northern states in the 2024 election. It is insane, it is evil, it is against the long them interests of the US.

    Yes, the leftist handlers are siding with a regime that put Israeli babies in ovens to bake until dead.

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    1. BPhillips

      Except the administration continues their support of Israel. Show me some evidence that the Biden administration is supporting Hamas - sending weapons? Intelligence support? What exactly do you mean?

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        Retired Prosecutor

        The Administration has abandoned our most stalwart ally in the forum of public opinion, where that space is now dominated by anti-Israel progressives.

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      2. R Green

        For one thing, the UN veto and public condemnations of Israel and now calls for an immediate ceasefire have enormously weakened Israel's hand and pumped up Hamas' belief that they will win this war. Have you noticed that the moment that Biden did this, they quit negotiating with Israel?

        Why give anything up if American pressure will force Israel to give Hamas what it wants without sacrificing anything?

        Hamas' entire strategy is survival, gambling that the US and world will force Israel to stop the war before Hamas is destroyed. And Biden just gave them exactly what they wanted. There won't be any more meaningful negotiations now; Biden just killed them.

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        1. BPhillips

          I hope you are wrong, we'll see what happens in Rafah.

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  6. Nick V

    Joe Biden's MO for 50 years has been to be squarely in the middle of whatever his party is doing. In the course of his political life, he has demonstrated all of the political courage of a pigeon. Now that his party is split between diametrically opposed preferences, it should surprise exactly no one that he is having trouble navigating the issue. Even in his backslapping and buddy up prime, which we are currently far away from, he'd struggle with this. On the upside, at least in 20 years we won't have to hear made up stories about what he did during this time. Donald Trump hasn't been in politics for that long, but if he had, he'd be the exact same guy. He's currently doing the same dance, and he has no ideological core, there's no reason to believe he will suddenly discover any profound principles. The whole mess would be kind of ironically funny if it were about something other than suffering and death.

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  7. Anna K. Gorisch

    So this is a thing in Texas now. Man I love my state.

    https://literallyanybodyelse.com

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    Citizen60

    Biden and Trump may be stalemated, but Biden and Netanyahu are not.

    Netanyahu is strengthened politically by “being the only one strong enough to stand up to the U.S. pressure” by the voters who keep electing him. There is no mechanism for getting him to stand aside (“Hamas will win if we hold elections now”), and the IDF takes their orders from him/his far right more than the wartime “unity” leadership. There can be millions of Israelis in the streets, and Netanyahu doesn’t have to do anything.

    And Biden knows it. Biden’s heart may be with Israel; but every president since Eisenhower ends up mad at Israel—except during Trump’s first term.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Bayesian

      Eisenhower was plenty mad at Israel for their part in the Suez fiasco. He just didn't talk about it on TV (which apparently only became the overriding reality in American politics in 1960, when I was two).

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        Citizen60

        I was older, and it was very well reported. And quite a lively topic of discussion at family gatherings between my Republican parents and my Democratic relatives.

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  9. Avatar photo
    George.Skinner

    Biden's in trouble because a political fault line regarding Israel and Palestine runs right through the middle of his political coalition. He lacks the political talent needed to triangulate, and his habit of trying to occupy a position in the middle of the party fails him in this case. Triangulation is the approach Biden needs: he has to focus on the humanitarian plight of the Gazans while also making clear that supporting the current Gazan government is impossible. As a start, Biden should be starting every utterance regarding Gaza with a demand that Hamas surrender and release the hostages to end the suffering of the Gazan people. He also needs to insist on a 2 state solution, but require a Palestinian recognition that Israel exists and will continue to exist and a renunciation of violence. Gazans have some agency in ending this conflict, and if they want peace, they need to renounce war. Those are the conditions for supporting a Palestinian state in the face of Israeli opposition.

    We're only 20 years removed from the start of the Global War on Terror, and the ideology of Hamas is barely distinguishable from Al Qaeda and ISIS. Supporting Hamas or letting them escape consequences for their action would be like telling the citizens of New York to pound sand on September 12 and talking about providing more funding to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan.

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    1. R Green

      > He also needs to insist on a 2 state solution, but require a Palestinian recognition that Israel exists and will continue to exist and a renunciation of violence.

      A 2 state solution, particularly now, is a fool's errand. The PA has been mouthing those empty words to the West for decades, while the imbecilic reporters and blind western leaders nod their heads in approval, meanwhile they state the exact opposite to their population in Arabic, their schools continue to churn out brainwashed masses trained to hate Jews above all else, and the PA continues to pay their populace to kill Jews.

      The PA IS Hamas, wearing suits and telling the West what they want to hear. Hamas is just more direct.

      Right now the Pals want dead Jews way more than they want their own state, but some are saying, "agree to whatever you have to agree with to get a state, then resume the war against Israel".

      In any case, making a state out of the PA and Hamas would just result in a doomed, collapsed state in short order. Neither the PA or Hamas cares a whit about governing or doing the right thing for their populace; they would fail immediately and utterly at trying to build a state.

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  10. AltheDago

    There's nothing whatever political about supporting Israel against Hamas (or Hezbollah, for that matter.) Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, no matter what fictions various Arab states like to tell themselves. Arabs who are citizens of Israel enjoy the same rights as any other Israeli.

    Hamas and Hezbollah are both dedicated to the elimination of Israel as a nation and, by extension, the elimination of Israelis as a people. That, young Palestinian supporters, is what genocide looks like. It's not putting up a barrier to keep the people who are trying to kill you out.

    Frankly, anyone who can't figure that out is probably too ignorant to be allowed to exercise the franchise, but that's not an option in our constitutional republic.

    Alas.

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