“The United States has Israel’s back,” said President Biden after the Hamas attack, but what does that entail? No pro-Israel politician is ever prepared to say how much death and destruction is enough for them.
More than 7,000 people have been killed so far in Gaza. This week National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby told the press to anticipate further carnage.
“I said this the other day, and — and I think your question prompts me to say it again, because I think it’s an important notion: This is war. It is combat. It is bloody. It is ugly, and it’s going to be messy. And innocent civilians are going to be hurt going forward,” he explained.
“I wish I could tell you something different. I wish that that wasn’t going to happen. But it is — it is going to happen,” he continued. “And that doesn’t make it right. It doesn’t make it dismissible. It doesn’t mean that we aren’t going to still express concerns about that and — and do everything we can to help the Israelis do everything they can to minimize it. But — but that’s — that’s, unfortunately, the nature of conflict.”
A new Data for Progress poll shows that a majority of Americans want a ceasefire and a de-escalation of the violence. Asked about the possibility, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller says it’s not happening. “Any ceasefire would give Hamas the ability to rest, to refit, and to get ready to continue launching terrorist attacks against Israel,” he claims. “You can understand perfectly clearly why that’s an intolerable situation for Israel, as it would be an intolerable situation for any country that has suffered such a brutal terrorist attack and continues to see the terrorist threat right on its border.”
“Biden tried from a position of love and friendship to tell the Israelis, ‘Think long term and don’t make the same mistakes we made after 9/11,” a U.S. official told Axios. There is an obvious fear that the violence will explode into a much wider war in the region.
But how seriously is Israel supposed to take these suggestions? The U.S. government gives the country over $3.8 billion in military aid every year, and Biden is requesting another $14.3 billion for them. He recently sent a number of military officers to Israel to help advise the attacks on Gaza. Two Iron Dome batteries are also headed their way, along with artillery shells that were previously heading to Ukraine.
A small number of progressive House Democrats are pushing a ceasefire resolution, but the party’s deeper rifts are apparent on the street. Tens of thousands of Americans have marched and rallied in support of Palestine, and there’s no sign that those actions will stop soon. This is all happening under a Democratic administration, in contrast to the Obama years when the anti-war momentum of the Bush-era dissipated. Activists chant, sing, and sit-in at the offices of prominent Democrats. Large crowds demonstrate in front of their houses. Former staffers for Senators Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Senator John Fetterman have publicly urged the lawmakers to embrace ceasefire. These are the biggest anti-imperialist protests we have seen in two decades.
There’s already talk about how Biden’s support for Israel might impact the 2024 election. The writing has been on the wall for a while on this issue, as poll after poll shows support for Israel is declining among Democratic voters. At Slate Alexandar Sammon writes about how youth support for Biden is taking a hit.
“On this issue, young voters are far from the president, who publicly remains hawkish and unstinting in a way that has not kept pace with their political attitudes (or even those, to a lesser degree, of the Democratic Party),” writes Sammon. “Biden has continued to pledge unquestioning and total support for Israel, even as human rights groups sound the alarm about the threat of the Israeli military committing ethnic cleansing against Palestinians, humanitarian groups’ inability to deliver anything resembling sufficient aid to Gaza, and comments from Israeli military leaders that indicate a willingness to target civilians. Biden’s Thursday night public address on the matter, which broadcast right around the same time that Israel was bombing one of the world’s oldest churches, killing 16 people, was cheered by Fox News—which is not, incidentally, a youth outlet.”
“But none of the ways that Biden has responded to the conflict have been received favorably by young Americans,” he continues. “That same Quinnipiac poll found that 51 percent of voters under 35 say they disapprove of the United States’ sending weapons and military support to Israel—a much higher figure than the 28 percent of Americans who oppose such a policy. Only 21 percent of voters under 35 say they approve of Biden’s Israel policy; 42 percent of voters across all age brackets approve.”
A new poll from Gallup says the president’s approval rating among Democrats has dropped 11 points since the Hamas attack. “Biden’s immediate and decisive show of support for Israel following the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas appears to have turned off some in his own party, resulting in Democrats’ worst assessment of the president since he took office,” says Gallup research consultant Megan Brinnan. “Biden’s overall approval rating likewise matches his personal low. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict comes at a time when Americans remain pessimistic about the economy, the Biden administration is struggling to deal with increasing numbers of migrants attempting to enter the country, and debate continues about how much aid to provide to Ukraine in its war with Russia.”
We are also seeing increasing anger toward this administration from Arab-American voters, some of whom might end up casting crucial ballots in swing states.
“I never in my life thought the empathizer-in-chief would sound the way he did. The Palestinians were given no humanity,” one Palestinian-American voter told Politico. “Joe Biden should spend every breath he has condemning Israel’s genocide with the same zeal he condemned Hamas’ massacre of civilians, that same zeal. And we get nothing. 1,000 children are dead, and we get nothing.”
That story was from days ago, though. It’s 3,000 children now.
People have been citing a lot of historical allusions lately, but how about this one: next year’s Democratic National Convention will take place in Chicago.
Resolution
Yesterday, The House overwhelmingly passed (412-10) a pro-Israel resolution that condemned Hamas’s attack, but didn’t mention what’s been done to Gaza or call for an end to the violence. Nearly every member backed the measure. The no votes included Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and 9 Democrats.
The Democrats were Reps. Rashida Tlaib (MI) Cori Bush (MO), Jamaal Bowman (NY), André Carson (IN), Al Green (TX), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Summer Lee (PA), Delia Ramirez (IL) and Ilhan Omar (MN).
“I have and continue to denounce the killing of civilians, no matter their faith or ethnicity,” said Tlaib in a statement. “Targeting civilians is a war crime, no matter who does it. Do not confuse my vote against this one-sided resolution with a lack of empathy for all those who are grieving. I voted against this resolution because it is a deeply incomplete and biased account of what is happening in Israel and Palestine, and what has been happening for decades. This resolution rightly mourns the thousands of Israeli civilians killed and wounded in the horrific attacks but explicitly does not mourn the thousands of Palestinian civilians, including over 2,000 children, killed and wounded in the collective punishment of Palestine. How does treating Palestinian civilians as less than fully human, as legitimate targets for retribution, bring us closer to a just and lasting peace?”
“U.S. military support for Israel with absolutely no conditions on upholding human rights has not brought peace and justice to the region,” she continued. “This resolution is not a serious examination of the root causes of the violence we are witnessing and doubles down on decades of failed policy. Achieving a just and lasting peace where Israelis and Palestinians have equal rights and freedoms, and where no person lives in fear for their safety, requires ending the blockade, occupation, and dehumanizing system of apartheid. I urge my colleagues to support our Ceasefire Now Resolution to call for an immediate de-escalation and ceasefire, to send humanitarian aid and assistance to Gaza, and to save as many lives as possible.”
Odds & Ends
???? ‘CUNY stands with Palestine liberation, despite what the chancellor says‘
✏️ Israeli antisemitism envoy Michal Cotler-Wunsh told Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod that she is urging the White House more clearly endorse the controversial IHRA working definition of antisemitism and declare that anti-Zionism is antisemitic.
???? Here’s GOP presidential hopeful Nikki Haley attacking the Biden administration for failing to conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism:
You can’t fight antisemitism if you can’t define it. Joe Biden and the Left refuse to call anti-Zionism antisemitism.
As president I will change the official federal definition of antisemitism to include denying Israel’s right to exist, and I will pull schools’ tax exemption status if they do not combat antisemitism in all of its forms – in accordance with federal law. College campuses are allowed to have free speech, but they are not free to spread hate that supports terrorism. Federal law requires schools to combat antisemitism. We will give this law teeth and we will enforce it. The United States of America will not use taxpayer dollars to fund antisemitism. Period. The Oct. 7 massacre and the ensuing weeks have proven what many of us have long known: There is no difference between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. In order to combat antisemitism, we have to define it, and that starts at the top.
❌ Dangerous stuff out of Florida where Governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis directed state universities to “deactivate” National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters in the state. DeSantis made the move in coordination with Ray Rodrigues, chancellor of the State University System of Florida.
“Based on the National SJP’s support of terrorism, in consultation with Governor DeSantis, the student chapters must be deactivated,” reads the letter to the school’s state universities. “These two student chapters may form another organization that complies with Florida state statutes and university policies. The two institutions should grant these two chapters a waiver for the fall deadlines, should reapplication take place.”
Somehow, this stuff never gets classified as “cancel culture.” Go figure.
???? This week Biden questioned the death toll in Gaza:”I have no notion if Palestinians are telling the truth,” he said. I’m sure innocents have been killed and it is the price of waging war..Israel should be incredibly careful to ensure they’re going after the folks propagating this war.”
HuffPost did some investigating into this amazing claim. Across nearly 20 State Department updates on the war, they found repeated Gaza Health Ministry and no mention of its accuracy:
In at least 12 instances, U.S. embassy officials attributed the number of Palestinian casualties to the Hamas-linked Health Ministry in Gaza — including in the report provided to State Department colleagues on Oct. 25, hours before Biden’s remarks.
In two reports written by State’s Operations Center and circulated within the department on Oct. 24 and 25, administration officials reported casualties in Gaza by citing two outside sources who quoted the Gaza ministry in their reports: Al Jazeera and the nonprofit Save the Children. And in one instance in which a situation report questioned the accuracy of figures from the Gaza ministry, on Oct. 21, the American official drafting the note wrote of the number of Gazans killed or injured the previous day: “The numbers are likely much higher, according to the UN and NGOs reporting on the situation.”
???????? ‘The pending crisis for the Israel lobby’
???? Bernie Sanders still hasn’t backed a ceasefire. Yesterday, he tweeted, “Israel has a right to defend itself against Hamas. But innocent Palestinians also have a right to life and security. I’m calling for a humanitarian pause by all parties so that critical aid can be delivered to the suffering people of Gaza and for the immediate release of all hostages.”
“It’s embarrassing that Secretary Blinken called for the smallest thing possible, a humanitarian pause, before you did,” former Justice Democrats spokesperson Waleed Shahid tweeted at the Senator.
“The dopey..half measure of a ‘humanitarian pause’ has no meaning,” wrote media critic Adam Johnson. “A ‘humanitarian pause’ just means stop bombing a specific place for a couple hours then start up again, utterly useless statement. Join the ceasefire bill or simply remain quiet.”
????️ ‘Blinken holds meeting with Arab-American groups over anger with Biden’
???????? ‘Why Biden is ‘persona non grata’ for many Arab and Muslim Americans’
???? ‘92NY halts literary series after pulling author critical of Israel’
???? Former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan announced Monday that he will withdraw from two Harvard fellowships, citing a wave of “dangerous anti-Semitism” on campus, i.e. a bunch of student groups signed a statement expressing support for Palestine and blaming Israel for the current situation.
???? This is kind of funny. On MSNBC, before his recent Oval Office speech, Joy Reid asked Jen Psaki how the Biden administration approaches the domestic protests and the fact he’s being called out by House members of his own party. She completely ignores the question. I should note she no longer works for the administration:
Reid: For the domestic political audience here, Jen, the White House started out by denouncing Democratic members of Congress in the statements they released. They decried the loss of human life on both sides and called for de-escalation. They were denounced by the White House. How does Biden approach the fact that there were 500 Jewish Americans in the capital protesting for peace, literally yesterday? Three hundred of them were arrested, and Marjorie Greene was calling them seditious, the truce edition. How does he navigate that inside his own party when there are people who don’t feel the way he does?
Psaki: First, Marjorie Taylor Greene will not be in the speech; we can all bet on that. Thankfully. I do think that what we should also hear from the 9/11 quote, which is the most important thing he said in the last 24 hours, is also a concern about what is happening on the border with Lebanon, which is a concern in the White House as well. When he is talking about the reaction, he’s referring to the Israelis and what they are doing in Gaza. He’s also talking about the global impact of that, given that there are a number of people, including Republican candidates, who are calling for war with Iran. That is another component I think we could listen for in this speech.
⚖️ At a State Department briefing this week, spokesperson Matthew Miller was asked if Israel was abiding by international law while pummeling Gaza. Here’s Miller in response:
No, we have not made any kind of formal determination, but it’s a matter we are in close communication with our Israeli counterparts. The President has discussed this with Israeli leadership. The Secretary has discussed this with Israeli leadership. And we’ve talked about it publicly, the fact that we believe it’s important that Israel comply with all laws of war. That is the responsibility of democracies. It’s the responsibility of all countries. And we’ll continue to make that clear to them.
I do, as always when asked about this question, do think it’s important to remind people of the context, which is that Hamas continues to embed itself inside the civilian population. Hamas continues to put legitimate military targets inside civilian infrastructure and use the civilians of Gaza as human shields. We know that Israel does notify civilians when it plans to conduct air strikes, say, against residential buildings, and gives those civilians an opportunity to vacate the premises. But we will continue to work through this question with them.
Stay safe out there,
Michael
