How Much Will "The Netanyahu Hug" Hurt Biden?
It has been an obsessive Trump project of the last seven years or so to win the Jewish vote from the Democrat party.
Whatever one thinks of the Netanyahu hug, it was a bold and decisive act. It made clear, along with the accompanying words, on which side of this war was the United States of America. President Biden told the world, through an emotional, heartfelt gesture, that the special relationship that exists between America and Israel, despite administrative acrimonies over the years, is still strong. It left little to the imagination, eliminating any sense of political chasm between Jerusalem and DC in this hour of crisis. We cannot fail to note that it has been an obsessive Trump project of the last seven years or so to win the Jewish vote — or a significant portion of it — away from the Democrat party. Because of President Biden’s bold show of support, however, there is little chance of that happening. “Seven-in-ten Jewish adults identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, and half describe their political views as liberal,” Pew Research finds. So there’s that.
Biden’s twin goals for the one-day visit which involved the enduring image of “the hug” were solidarity and de-escalation. Solidarity was definitely achieved, if not so much the de-escalation part of the equation. Still, President Biden, to his credit, did slow down somewhat the rush to mete out massive punishment to Gaza, so characteristic of Netanyahu, which, in turn, would have probably been catastrophic, inflaming the entire region, almost certainly drawing Hezbollah to fully engage in a second front of the Israel-Hamas War. It is deeply unfortunate that President Biden is getting none of the political credit for averting (theoretical) mass casualties on the Palestinian side.
But now let’s turn to domestic politics. What effect will the “Netanyahu hug” have on President Biden’s own Progressive coalition? Many Progressives within the Democrat Party — including former President Jimmy Carter — equate Israel’s position in the Gaza Strip and West Bank to tantamount to apartheid. From 1948 to the early 1990s, the minority white government in South Africa subjected the indigenous majority to a life nasty, brutish and short. College-educated Progressives largely equate South African apartheid with the Palestinian situation in Israel, at rallies and in letters of solidarity. The far-left, by the way, has always advocated this position, entirely complicating matters in this war, after the murders and the kidnapping. "End All Aid to Zionist, Colonial, Apartheid Israel!," exclaims, breathlessly, the LA Progressive. It is, of course, not quite that simple.
In that context — of viewing Israel as an apartheid state — some Progressives refuse to see what Hamas has done on October 7 as an act of pure and simple terrorism. They either reject the word altogether or quibble with the usage in this case. Even the Anglican Church of South Africa, which directly struggled against apartheid, now characterizes Israel an apartheid state, further complicating life for the defenders of the innocent Israeli civilians killed and kidnapped. Apartheid as a descriptor conjures images of extreme inequality, a state of being under which no government can hope for political stability and peace.
The definition of terrorism is “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.” Who among us can deny that that is precisely what Hamas did when it killed roughly 1400 people in a surprise attack on a single day, also kidnapping around two hundred people as hostages? Some Progressives, unfortunately, see this as an act of revolution, a sort of Mau Mau uprising on steroids. And, thinking in those terms — thinking in Global South, anti-colonialist terms — how many sub-Saharan Africans or indigenous Quechua Bolivians would mourn the murder of Afrikaners, say, 1984? It is at times like these that I am most in awe of the Wisdom and Beauty of non-violent resistance — of Martin Luther King, of Gandhi — and in trusting that the arc of history, though long, bends towards justice.
Still, imagine that: The largest wholesale killing of Jews since the Holocaust is seen by many Progressives in the United States as a revolutionary, even anti-colonialist act of liberation. This is a harrowing sentiment. And yet it is a view gaining traction in the Global South — the majority of the world — and those voices of protest will continue to grow in number and volume should Netanyahu continue his operations in Gaza with a hammer and not a scalpel. A scalpel is used in restrained, precision cuts while a sledgehammer is an instrument of demolition. This is also precisely what Hamas wants Netanyahu to do — to overreact. To eschew the scalpel. For that is how the trap — turning global opinion decidedly, definitively against Israel — is sprung. But for Netanyahu, who has spent his entire professional career being a hammer, Character is probably destiny.
What are the consequences for Biden? We ask the inevitable political question: To what degree with the “Netanyahu hug” hurt Biden, who won the presidency in 2020 with slim margins. Look to Wisconsin— and the Midwest. NPR's Domenico Montanaro put it this way: "just 44,000 votes in Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin separated Biden and Trump from a tie in the Electoral College." Regarding Wisconsin — Will Progressive and African-American voters in, say, Milwaukee County come out in force for Biden next November? Will some of those crucial Democrat voters veer towards a Progressive Independent candidate like Cornel West? West, who has no chance of winning, is far more critical of Israel. Or, do disenchanted Democrats voters on the issue of the Middle east stay home altogether?
Lets take a look at swing(ish) state Wisconsin. Senator Ron Johnson beat Mandela Barnes by 26,000 votes, largely because of low African-American voter turnout in Milwaukee County. "That has to be concerning to Democrats and the Barnes campaign, in particular; what is one of the great bastion of Democratic votes in the state didn't turn out as much as you would have expected," Charles Franklin, Director of the Marquette Law School Poll, told Spectrum News.
Further along in the Midwest, Michigan, which is 2% Muslim, could not inconceivably become competitive again in a Presidential race. Biden won the Great Lakes State by roughly 100,000 votes in 2020; but Trump won the state by roughly 10,000 votes in 2016. Could Trump win Michigan (again)? It is not impossible, despite Michigan’s present blue hue and widely popular Governor. And what about the African-American vote, which abhors apartheid in any form? Or, the college educated, Progressive vote? And the young, particularly in Michigan? Was the “Netanyahu hug” a red line crossed that cannot be uncrossed for them? Elie Mystal in The Nation makes a strong argument, channeling the inner anguish of young progressives:
Biden risks labeling himself as a president who is in favor of colonization, and one who will turn a blind eye to ethnic cleansing and war crimes—and those are tough labels to shake once they take hold in communities of color. Voters of color are strategic, and willing to swallow a lot of nonsense and vote for the lesser evil. But there are some who will simply not pull the lever for any president, in any party, who stands aside while an oppressed people is besieged, starved, and bombed into oblivion. Even if you don’t think Israel is a colonial power, or don’t think the Israeli government is violating the human rights of Palestinians as they wage war against Hamas, the Americans who do think those things are voters Biden is losing right now. Those are the kinds of voters who, once lost, Biden will never win back.
Indeed. If the midterms are any indication (and they might not be), enthusiasm appears to be waning. Lets start with the premise that the midterms were indicative of a softening in the Democrat Party of African-Americans, college-graduates as well as younger voters. These are all key constituents of Biden’s base. All of the self-congratulatory left-of-center headlines about the “red wave that wasn’t” in ‘22 were premature in what the numbers actually meant, vis-a-vis the 2020 Presidential election results. “Turnout in last year’s midterm elections fell from a century-high point of 50 percent in 2018 to 46.6 percent in 2022, and census data released Tuesday suggest the drop was concentrated among Black voters, younger voters and college graduates,” Scott Clement and Lenny Bronner wrote in May in the Washington Post. “Black voter turnout dropped by nearly 10 percentage points, from 51.7 percent in 2018 to 42 percent in 2022, according to a Washington Post analysis of the Census Bureau’s turnout survey.”
At present, Biden’s support of Israel appears to be the right political call. A PBS/NPR poll shows that most Americans support Israel in the beginning days of the conflict. But those numbers soften as the respondents get younger. “This is particularly true of the youngest Americans eligible to vote — just 48% of Gen Z/millennials said the U.S. should publicly voice support, as compared to 63% of Gen X, 83% of baby boomers and 86% of the Silent/Greatest generation,” wrote NPR’s Montanaro. Further, “Along racial lines, just 51% of nonwhites said the U.S. should take such a public stance supporting Israel, while 72% of whites thought it should.” Will those numbers hold, however, once civilian casualties mount? Will those numbers hold, however, if the war expands into a multifront quagmire as a result, quite possibly, of Netanyahu’s overreaction?
President Joe Biden was born in 1942 and is a moral man with an active conscience. Unlike his predecessor, he has worked on himself and tried to do the right thing. He grew up in the aftermath of the Holocaust. His empathy for Israel, now that he is in a position of power, is naught else but highly commendable. President Biden is also a very sophisticated player of the game, aware, always, as to where his political base is located on any issue. The President had to know that there would be deep drawbacks to not just supporting Israel pretty unconditionally, but also going there to hug Netanyahu, not the most popular guy in Peoria. In the intervening weeks Biden has tried to add nuance his position — to human rights watch, to 60 Minutes — on the importance of a two-state solution. But those efforts at a Palestinian state, contrasted against his unwavering, “no limits partnership” with Israel appear to the world and to domestic audiences alike to be what can only be properly construed as half-hearted.
And those arguments will appear far less than even half-hearted if Benjamin Netanyahu launches a ground invasion in Gaza that involves massive civilian casualties. If Netanyahu goes into Gaza more like a sledgehammer than as a scalpel in dealing with Hamas, the goodwill he gained immediately following the October 7 terrorist attacks will dissipate as fast as the international goodwill America received as a result of the September 11 attacks and the subsequent invasions/overreactions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Anxiety has been the backdrop to American life for a long time. It wasn’t just the pandemic - which if you didn’t die, we now know you statistically emerged from wealthier than before. We have a sense that safety is our birthright, when in fact, we all have an appointment with the Grim Reaper. Pockets of the world are dangerous. The Middle East. Russia’s western border. We soak up distant horror to a degree unprecedented in human history, thanks to technology that enables us to witness distant violence in real time. But if you watch Fox, which I have been doing lately for a project to come, you will have been thinking for a very long time that peril lurks next door.” (American Political Freakshow/Nine Burleigh)
“In the days after Hamas attacked Israel earlier this month, Shlomo Karhi, the country’s communications minister, did something that was guaranteed to catch the attention of the American press: he called out Donald Trump, who had just criticized various Israeli officials and described Hezbollah as ‘very smart.’ It is ‘shameful that a man like that, a former US president, abets propaganda and disseminates things that wound the spirit of Israel’s fighters and its citizens,’ Karhi said. ‘We don’t have to bother with him and the nonsense he spouts.’ A few days later, Karhi was in the news in Israel linked to similar language. But this time he and Trump would likely have agreed in principle: Haaretz, a liberal daily, reported that he was in the process of pushing through an aggressive clampdown on the news media. According to the story, Karhi wanted to be granted sweeping powers to arrest or confiscate the property of any civilians, including journalists, who spread information that in his view ‘undermines the morale of Israel’s soldiers and residents in the face of the enemy’ or ‘serves as a basis for enemy propaganda’—including in cases where the information is true.” (Jon Allsop/CJR)
“It is worth noting that from all sides, the people we saw in London accept — and some revel — in the fact that the United Kingdom, which once ruled a quarter of the world, is now a mid-size nation off the coast of Europe, albeit with nukes and a Security Council veto. Meghan, Harry, and Andrew are all muted. King Charles III and Queen Camilla are in their seventies, adultery in the past now forgiven. The late Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip are now held in permanent reverence. For now, the titillating royal scandals are done and done.” (Peter Osnos)
“Back to the topic of genocide. One of my Israeli cousins’ students was killed by Hamas on October 7. An elderly couple I know from my summer camp days lives on Kibbutz Nir Oz next to Gaza somehow survived the assault on their village; a third of its 400 residents did not. A cousin of my wife’s was injured trying to repel the invaders. A close friend here in New York just told me his business partner’s family was kidnapped. And I have a Palestinian friend who has lost several family members in Gaza from Israel’s bombing. According to more than 240 experts in international law, what Hamas and Islamic Jihad did on October 7 – the massacre of more than 1,300 people with the ‘intent to destroy, in whole or in part’ a national group, something explicitly declared by Hamas, qualifies as genocide under the Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. It takes two things for a violent action or series of actions to be labeled a genocide: the targeting of a specific national, ethnic, racial or religious group for destruction, and the declared intent to do so.” (Micah Sifry/The Connector)