Tipsheet

Joe Biden's Israel Problem on the Left

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  November 02, 2023 10:01 AM

A great deal of recent polling demonstrates that a large majority of Americans, from across the political spectrum, are pro-Israel.  A small minority favors the Palestinian cause, on balance, and even fewer people are pro-Hamas, at least outwardly.  But the latter voices are disproportionately represented among a handful of core constituencies of the Democratic Party -- hardcore leftists, young voters, and Muslim-Americans.  They are loudly demanding a "ceasefire," which would be a gift to the terrorists, and have been in the streets chanting virulently anti-Israel, eliminationist slogans.  Public opinion surveys show that the farther left one gets on the political spectrum, the more likely one is to side against the pluralistic democracy of Israel (deemed 'oppressors'), in favor of the deeply illiberal 'oppressed victims,' and the medieval terrorists who rule Gaza.  Actual Israeli victimhood is celebrated, justified, or outright denied.  As we've covered previously, among Muslim-Americans, the numbers are alarming:

And young voters, largely ignorant of the facts and primed with social media propaganda and lies about Israeli "genocide" and "apartheid," aren't far behind.  With Rashida Tlaib blaming the US and the president for Israel's bombing of a hospital, which didn't happen, another leading Congressional 'progressive' is warning the Biden administration about the political peril of backing Israel:

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., warned President Biden to be "careful" about his support for Israel on Sunday during an interview on NBC and said she needed to "call us to a higher moral place" as the war between Israel and Hamas continues. NBC's "Meet the Press" host Kristen Welker asked Jayapal if she was concerned about Biden's election chances as he might be losing support from Arab Americans. "I think the president needs to be just as courageous on this issue so that we keep the unity within our country for the support of the incredible things he has done. He is, I think, you know, going to be challenged to explain an issue of this moral significance to people. The American people are actually quite far away from where the president and even Congress, the majority of Congress, has been on Israel and Gaza. They support the right for Israel to defend itself, to exist, but they do not support a war crime exchanged for another war crime. I think the president has to be careful about that, and I would call him because I know him well," she said.

This mentality actually doesn't support Israel's right to defend itself because it instantly declares anything Israel does in self-defense a "war crime," no matter how false that accusation is.  Some Congressional Democrats are fighting amongst themselves on the issue, too.  Pro-Israel New Jersey Representative Josh Gottheimer castigated his colleagues who voted against a resolution condemning Hamas as "despicable," Indiana's Andrew Carson -- an acolyte of vehement anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan -- counter-attacked:

On Fox, I noted that the election is still more than a year away, but some of these fissures could be festering into an expanding problem for Democrats:  

It also seems likely that the anti-Israel contingent within the party will grow as time progresses.  This could create major tensions for Democrats, whose base would be increasingly alienated from the rest of the country on the issue, and could threaten the party's grip on another key group in their coalition: Jewish voters.  Muslims backed Biden by more than 50 points in 2020, according to one exit poll.  Biden's margin among Jewish voters was similarly vast, or even wider, depending on the survey.  Are those partisan gaps sustainable?  Some Muslims voters are threatening to walk away from Biden because of his support for Israel:

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In multiple battleground states that Biden won with thin margins last time, a growing chorus of community leaders say his handling of the war in Gaza and Islamophobia at home jeopardize his path to victory in the Electoral College, with many Muslim American and Arab American voters saying they plan to either stay home next November, vote for a write-in or a third-party presidential candidate, or simply leave the top of the ticket blank.And while the election is more than a year away, these warnings are coming not just from usual suspects — such as never-satisfied activists on the restive left — but Democratic elected officials, nonpartisan community leaders, Muslim get-out-the vote groups and even some of Biden’s biggest Arab American validators.

Biden should ignore these threats, of course, because supporting Israel's defensive war against Hamas terrorists is absolutely the right thing to do, morally. And the political trade-off also wouldn't be worth it. But if the pro-Hamas, anti-Israeli forces grow in numbers and influence within the Democratic electorate, these electoral calculations will become more painful.  What will it mean for our politics if these people are the future of the Democratic base?