Biden’s pandering to the educated elites has led him to vacate the centrist position on Israel’s defensive war against Hamas. The GOP will gladly fill that vacuum.
Given the level of anxiety that the disruptive, menacing, and profoundly ignorant anti-Israel protest movement has induced in the Biden White House and its allies, you could be forgiven for thinking that it was a politically significant and sympathetic movement. It is neither.
A new Fox News–sponsored poll conducted over the past weekend is just the latest evidence indicating that the Bidenites have deluded themselves into believing they are obliged to pander to this mob.
When registered voters were asked whether they support “the Israelis” or “the Palestinians” in the current conflict, 57 percent of voters backed the Israelis. Less than 30 percent backed the Palestinians. Slightly less than one-third of respondents believe the United States is “too supportive” of Israel. Sixty-three percent say America’s support for Israel is either “just right” or “not enough.”
Nearly 60 percent of respondents said they “oppose” the campus demonstrations. Moreover, almost 30 percent admit that the quality of the demonstrations has made them “less sympathetic” toward the protesters’ cause. Just 16 percent said the protests had made them “more sympathetic.”
That’s intuitive enough provided the characterizations of the protesters with which respondents agreed. Fifty-eight percent called them “anti-Israeli.” Forty-six percent said they were “antisemitic.” A minority, but a large one at 43 percent, said the protests were “anti-American,” while another 42 percent called them “pro-Hamas.”
By a two-to-one margin, voters disapprove of Joe Biden’s “handling” of the war between Israel and Hamas, but it’s worthwhile to explore the crosstabs to see precisely who is doing the disapproving. Nearly 90 percent of Republicans dislike Biden’s approach to the conflict, just as they disapprove of almost everything associated with Joe Biden. It’s reasonable to assume that the GOP hasn’t turned on the president’s management of this war because he’s too supportive of Israel’s cause. Indeed, more revealingly, almost 60 percent of self-described Democrats approve of Biden’s handling of the conflict.
Minority voters disapprove of Biden when it comes to Israel, but that number is driven primarily by Hispanic Americans (who are increasingly down on this administration on a range of issues). Black voters are split on the issue, with 43 percent approving of the president’s handling and 48 percent disapproving. The core Democratic constituency that has turned sharply against Biden in relation to his handling of Israel are college-degree holders, who disapprove of the president’s conduct to the tune of 54 to 42 percent. That phenomenon is especially pronounced among white degree-holding women, among whom just 35 percent approve of Biden’s policies toward Israel, while 61 percent disapprove.
Why has the Biden White House adopted a schizophrenic approach to managing relations with its Israeli counterparts? Why does this administration appear paralyzed by fear of the prospect that it might offend the sensibilities of the keffiyeh-clad Hamasniks terrorizing America’s college administrators? That’s your answer. Indeed, so many of this administration’s political headaches are downstream from its obsession with pandering to university-educated professionals.
The administration’s myopia has led it to vacate the centrist position on Israel’s defensive war against Hamas, leaving a vacuum in its wake the GOP will gladly fill. But no political operation should have needed a poll to understand that embracing the cause endorsed by the unlovely protests glutting their respective college campuses was a foolish endeavor.
The Biden White House spent the last several months mortgaging the goodwill it earned with Israel’s American supporters at the outset of the war against Hamas. And what has the trade-off earned them? Almost nothing but political headaches.