Biden bends on Israel with reelec­tion in doubt

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 bat­tl …