Will Israel Be Blamed for Biden’s Defeat?

The news that President Biden trails President Trump in five of the six swing states that could collectively decide the 2024 presidential election is giving the Democrats paroxysms. For that result, spelled out in a New York Times / Siena College poll, confirms the fragility of their frontrunner. With the election still more than a year away, those in Mr. Biden’s own party, seething against Israel, are already fingering a culprit — the Jewish state. Pinning Mr. Biden’s hypothesized loss to Mr. Trump on Israel could be the signal moment in the party’s volte face from a stalwart supporter of Zion to one where the energies are with the Palestinians. The president’s support for Israel in this war could come to be seen as the exception rather than the rule. Israel could be figured as the culprit of two imagined wrongs — waging war on Gaza, and restoring Mr. Trump to the White House.Such a case is already emerging. A fresh poll shows Mr. Biden with the support of only 16 percent of Muslim voters in Michigan, where that Times poll has him losing by five points overall. The chief executive officer of Emgage, which aims to bolster Muslim turnout, Wa’el Alzayat, reckons to CNN that Mr. Biden’s Middle East policy “may dissuade enough voters to sit back in the next election and watch Donald Trump control the presidency.”Mr. Alzayat went farther with Politico, saying that the administration has “lost progressives. They’ve lost young people. They’ve lost probably a good chunk of the Black community, and like as of this moment, the entire Arab-Muslim community.” An employee of the Sunrise Movement, a radical climate group, warns that it is “shameful” for Mr. Biden to think that, come Election Day, young voters will “forget what he greenlit in Gaza.”For Mr. Biden, these threats are not idle. Polling shows that he already trails Mr. Trump among younger voters. These numbers could, along with reports of a pro-Palestinian mutiny among his diplomatic corps, be behind a softening of support in recent days, expressed in the push for an oxymoron called a “humanitarian pause.” Anti-Israel protesters are leaving on the White House gates prints meant to represent bloody hands.If Mr. Biden goes down in November, expect the left to point an accusing finger at Israel. For those implacably opposed to the Jewish state, such a defeat could be more useful than a victory, if the goal is to solidify the left as a Palestinian redoubt. The scapegoating of the Jews is as old as the Bible, and it could return with a vengeance in 2024. If Mr. Biden will eventually be blamed by Israel’s enemies, what is the point in placating them now?

Will Israel Be Blamed for Biden’s Defeat?

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