I turned on the news Friday morning to learn that Israel had bombed Iran in retaliation for the Islamic State’s missile attack on the Jewish state last weekend. Fortunately, Israel’s counterattack was measured and caused relatively little damage to Iran. Now the world waits to see if the Iranian leaders will retaliate in turn. Or, hopefully, since their losses were minor, the Iranians may be content to leave matters as is, as long as Israel does the same. Still, these two enemies have brought their mutual enmity to the brink of all-out war. No one can be happy about that.

At the same time, the Israeli-Hamas War drags on in Gaza. While President Biden urges Prime Minister Netanyahu to halt the Israeli offensive and agree to a ceasefire, again the world waits, this time, to see what Israel will do next.

Meanwhile, Congress is preparing to send more unconditional military assistance to our Middle East ally in its battle against Hamas.[1] Biden’s support for the $26 billion aid for Israel just approved by Congress this weekend is further alienating the Muslin American community from the president:

Many Muslim Americans were already furious with the Biden administration over its handling of the Israel-Hamas war, with activists organizing Democrats to vote “uncommitted” rather than support the president in some state primaries this year.[2]

Such aid only undercuts any efforts by the Biden administration to stop the fighting. What incentive does Netanyahu have to cease his offensive in Gaza if the U.S. continues supplying him with the means to keep it going? It makes no sense. Moreover, the administration’s unwillingness to get tough with Israel as more and more innocent Gazans become collateral damage or starve to death hurts Biden’s re-election campaign.

The longer this war continues, the greater the possibility of Iran and its surrogates coming to the aid of Hamas and creating a much larger regional war. As noted in Foreign Affairs:

Biden urgently needs to articulate and then implement a clear strategy to protect Palestinian civilians from bearing the brunt of Israel’s military operations, counter Iran’s corrosive war-by-proxy strategy, and blunt the capabilities of Tehran’s accomplices.[3]

The war is taking a toll on Biden’s support.[4] Less than 40% of Americans now support Israel’s actions in Gaza.[5] And only 33% now support Biden’s handling of the conflict.[6] If the war is not concluded in the next few months, the president may very well be on the brink of defeat in November. Biden could lose swing states like Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin that he won by small margins in 2020.[7] He needs to use the full force of his office to quickly step up his efforts to end the war or risk losing the presidency this fall.

Bruce Berlin

A retired, public sector ethics attorney, Berlin is the author of Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America (See breakingbigmoneysgrip.com.), the founder of New Mexicans for Money Out of Politics, a former U.S. Institute of Peace fellow, and the founder and former executive director of The Trinity Forum for International Security and Conflict Resolution. He can be reached at breakingbigmoneysgrip@gmail.com. Subscribe to this blog at https://breakingbigmoneysgrip.com/my-blog-3/

---

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/19/israel-ukraine-aid-house-speaker-mike-johnson/

[2] https://www.yahoo.com/news/muslim-americans-soured-biden-see-024447720.html

[3] https://www.foreignaffairs.com/iran/irans-order-chaos-suzanne-maloney?check_logged_in=1&utm_medium=promo_email&utm_source=lo_flows&utm_campaign=registered_user_welcome&utm_term=email_1&utm_content=20240419

[4] https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/israels-war-gaza-political-flashpoint-risk-bidens-coalition/story?id=108962662

[5] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/19/americans-israel-gaza-polling/

[6] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-israel-gaza-poll-cbs-news/

[7] https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/wisconsin/; https://www.yahoo.com/news/muslim-americans-soured-biden-see-024447720.html; https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/state/michigan