U.S. President Joe Biden's failure to halt Israel's military offensive in Gaza could cost him at the ballot box as the ongoing war becomes a leading foreign policy issue in the leadup to the 2024 election, a senior official of the Palestinian Hamas movement told Newsweek.
As concerns continue to grow over increasing civilian casualties in the 24-week-long conflict sparked by a Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, Biden and his administration have called on Israel not to move forward with a planned incursion into southern Gaza's Rafah region, where up to half of the densely populated Palestinian territory's 2.2 million people are believed to be taking shelter.
After a meeting Friday with his wartime cabinet and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, however, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserted that he would press on with the plan with or without U.S. support.
Bassem Naim, a senior official and spokesperson for Hamas, argued that the U.S. could but would not pressure Israel sufficiently to change course, something he warned would harm U.S. interests and Biden's image among his own constituency when asked about the president's fight for reelection in November.
"America has the ability but not sufficient will to exert the necessary pressure on Israel, despite the internal pressure in America due to the crimes it commits and the endangerment of American interests in the region," Naim told Newsweek.
"This American path constitutes a strategic mistake at the internal and external levels. The American people will not accept the continuation of this blind bias towards Israel, and externally, this threatens its interests in the region."
Recent polling of U.S. opinion has indicated some troubling trends for Israel. While Israel remains far more popular than Hamas among the U.S. population, support for the country and its war effort has slipped.
A poll published this month by Gallup showed that favorable ratings of Israel have dropped 10 points from 68 percent in February 2023 to 58 percent as of last month. Another poll published this month by the Pew Research Center found that the favorability of the Israeli government has dropped from 47 percent in 2022 to 41 percent this year, with unfavorable views rising from 43 percent to 51 percent during this same time period.
In a survey published last month by the Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, about half of those asked said Israel has "gone too far" in the conflict, a 10-point rise from 40 percent who said the same in November 2023. Those who described Israel as an "ally" also fell, dropping from 44 percent in November to 35 percent in February.
A number of Arab and Muslim voters in the U.S. has threatened to boycott voting for Biden over the U.S. role in Gaza and military action tied to other growing crises across the Middle East. Biden has faced particular backlash in the swing state of Michigan, especially in Dearborn, home to the country's largest Muslim population per capita.
Newsweek has reached out to the White House for comment.
Just how much the issue actually weighs on Biden's reelection chances remains to be seen, however, as U.S. voters also contend with other concerns such as the economy, health care, immigration and other domestic issues.
Further complicating the matter for those critical of Biden's handling of the issue in Gaza is that his rival, former President Donald Trump, has traditionally been a close ally of Netanyahu. While the presumptive Republican presidential nominee has largely avoided weighing in on the issue amid his campaign to retake office, Trump told Fox News this month that Israel must "finish the problem" in Gaza, arguing that the "horrible invasion" conducted by Hamas on October 7, 2023, "would have never happened if I was president."
Days after the unprecedented Hamas-led operation caught Israel off guard, Trump criticized what he saw as a massive intelligence failure on the part of Netanyahu's administration, drawing some criticism from fellow Republicans.
Netanyahu, for his part, has appeared unphased by U.S. criticism. Following his meeting with wartime cabinet members and Blinken on Friday, Netanyahu said in a video address that he deeply appreciated U.S. support and the need to protect civilians and ensure humanitarian aid, but that "we have no way to defeat Hamas without going into Rafah and eliminating the rest of the battalions there."
"And I told him that I hope we will do it with the support of the U.S.," Netanyahu added, "but if we have to—we will do it alone."
As U.S.-backed efforts mediated by Egypt and Qatar to reach a ceasefire deal that would also see to the release of more than 100 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza continue to falter, Blinken also weighed in on the Biden administration's position during a press briefing after his meeting with Israeli leadership.
"We share Israel's goal of defeating Hamas, which is responsible for the worst massacre of the Jewish people since the Holocaust, and we share the goal of ensuring Israel's long-term security," Blinken said. "As we've said, though, a major military ground operation in Rafah is not the way to do it.
"It risks killing more civilians, it risks wreaking greater havoc with the provision of humanitarian assistance, it risks further isolating Israel around the world and jeopardizing its long-term security and standing."
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Based in his hometown of Staten Island, New York City, Tom O'Connor is an award-winning Senior Writer of Foreign Policy ... Read more
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