Biden bends on Israel with reelection in doubt

History will judge President Joe Biden’s break with Israel in its war on Hamas, but the political consequences will come much sooner.

Biden’s shift from standing foursquare behind Israel after the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas attack to demanding an “immediate ceasefire” six months later is at least partially motivated by his precarious political position.

Since the beginning of the war, Biden has faced considerable dissent on Israel from progressive Democrats, inside his own White House team, in the halls of Congress, and among the activists who power the Left on college campuses and in big cities.

This has only gotten worse as the civilian casualties in Gaza have grown. Hamas embeds itself within civilian population centers, making itself difficult to strike without high death tolls, and Israel has increasingly faced international scrutiny of its conduct of the war.

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Biden’s stance on Israel threatened to deepen his problems with younger and minority voters, some of whom are disproportionately found in the battleground states that will decide the presidential election. 

Michigan in particular is home to many Muslim and Arab American voters. Biden has been no better than tied with former President Donald Trump in any recent Michigan poll, trailing him by 3 points in the Wall Street Journal’s swing-states survey and by nearly as much in the RealClearPolitics polling average for the state.

Biden easily won Michigan’s Democratic primary last month, winning 81.1% of the vote. But the ⁦101,457 raw votes for a slate of uncommitted delegates, 13.2% of the total, was nevertheless a troubling protest. Biden won Michigan by 154,l88 votes in 2020, while Trump won it by 10,704 in 2016 as the Green Party’s Jill Stein received 51,463 votes.

The Israeli drone strikes killing World Central Kitchen aid workers may have been Biden’s breaking point. He threatened Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a number of demands he had previously been hesitant to make in public. 

“President Biden emphasized that the strikes on humanitarian workers and the overall humanitarian situation are unacceptable,” stated a White House readout of the Biden-Netanyahu call. “He made clear the need for Israel to announce and implement a series of specific, concrete, and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers.” 

The White House said Biden “made clear that U.S. policy with respect to Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israel’s immediate action on these steps.” He also “underscored that an immediate ceasefire is essential to stabilize and improve the humanitarian situation and protect innocent civilians.”

It remains to be seen whether U.S. policy toward Israel will actually change in any meaningful way. But on conditioning aid and calls for a ceasefire, Biden has adopted at least the rhetorical positions of the Left. (Biden, the White House said, did reiterate “the United States strongly supports Israel in the face” of threats from Iran.)

Another open question is whether Biden’s apparent about-face will improve his position in Michigan and elsewhere. It should be noticed that Trump has also given recent indications that he is losing patience with Netanyahu’s Gaza offensive. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), frequently a supporter of Israel, has tried to make Netanyahu the problem rather than the Jewish state, recently calling for new Israeli elections. Netanyahu is embroiled in controversies unrelated to the war and has long been close to Republicans in the U.S. while bitterly unpopular with Democrats.

Yet there are political risks for Biden and Schumer as well. Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) is down 17 points to a pro-Israel primary challenger in a new poll. A separate poll released earlier this year showed Trump beating Biden among New York Jewish voters.

Biden’s chances of narrowing the gap in Michigan are considerably better than Trump’s of scoring an upset in New York. But the “Squad” and college protesters aren’t the only people who will be voting on the president’s handling of Israel this year.

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While there are other reasons for Biden’s deepening rift with Netanyahu over Gaza, Democrats are worried this war could cost them the election.

Time will tell whether Biden’s moves this week will materially change his party’s electoral position for the better.