November 15 was the perfect synchrony of optics and reality for Uncle Sam’s most strategic West Asian ally and the political future of the most powerful man on Earth. Two simultaneous events highlighted the cruciality of maintaining public perception despite reality biting in private. Joe Biden, rattled by his lowest approval ratings, the prospect of losing the presidency to his bête noire Donald Trump in 2024 and the costly and excruciating Ukraine war, faced his biggest foreign policy scourge.
The Israel-Hamas war had become the American president’s second-worst nightmare after the Ukraine quagmire. The bloody figures were frightening—1,200 Israelis killed and 239 taken hostage by Hamas in the October 7 terrorist attacks and more than 14,000 Gazans, including 4,500 children, bombed to death and another 1.7 million displaced in the subsequent retaliation by Israel.
Biden was driven to the precipice. On one hand, he couldn’t afford to alienate America’s steadfast ally, Benjamin Netanyahu, by pressing for an immediate ceasefire in public. On the other hand, the unbearable heat, including from within his party, calling for an urgent ceasefire was scalding him in private. American colleges had become flashpoints of pro-Palestine and pro-Israel demonstrations while a few Muslim and Arab-American groups had threatened not to vote and donate for Biden in the 2024 presidential election unless he secured a ceasefire.
On November 15, a day after the White House opposed a ceasefire arguing that it would let Hamas regroup, 24 House Democrats led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote a letter to Biden urging for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Several of the signatories included women lawmakers like Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Pramila Jayapal, Barbara Lee, Summer Lee, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush, Joaquin Castro, Ayanna Pressley, and even Raúl Grijalva and Mary Gay Scanlon, who hadn’t signed a recent ceasefire resolution in the House.
“We write to you to express deep concern about the intensifying war in Gaza, particularly grave violations against children, and our fear that without an immediate cessation of hostilities and the establishment of a robust bilateral ceasefire, this war will lead to a further loss of civilian life and risk dragging the United States into dangerous and unwise conflict with armed groups across the Middle East,” the letter, endorsed by several rights organisations like Amnesty International and Oxfam America, read.
Biden had only one option. For the sake of perception, he pretended to be unmoved. On the night of November 15, he stuck to his stance against a ceasefire before the media on the sidelines of the APEC Summit in San Francisco.
In an unapologetic defence of Israel, he said, “It is not carpet bombing; this is a different thing. They’re going through these tunnels; they’re going into the hospital. They’re also bringing in incubators or bringing in other means to help people in the hospital, and they’ve given, I’m told, the doctors and nurses and personnel the opportunity to get out of harm’s way.” For the sake of reality, however, Biden had been playing a different game in complicity with Bibi.
On November 22, Israel and Hamas agreed to a four-day Qatari-brokered truce under which 50 civilian women and child hostages would be freed in exchange for 150 Palestinian prisoners.
“Time is up [for brokering a ceasefire],” Biden warned Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani over an urgent phone call. Ironically, Biden called Al Thani from the APEC Summit while publicly opposing a ceasefire. In fact, efforts to free the hostages started soon after the Hamas attacks, two officials involved in the effort told Reuters. Besides Biden, Netanyahu and Al Thani, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, CIA director Bill Burns, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Middle East coordinator Brett McGurk and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi were involved.
Soon after the Hamas attacks, Qatar requested the US to form a small secret team of advisors to free the hostages. McGurk and another National Security Council official Josh Geltzer formed the team under extreme secrecy. Biden was apprised of the situation daily by Sullivan as McGurk started talking to Qatari PM Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani every day over the phone.
While opposing a truce in public, Biden was working behind the scenes for a ceasefire—and a hostage-prisoner swap deal was the only way to pause the fighting. On November 14, Biden called Netanyahu, who agreed to the deal. Finally, Biden called the Emir. “The president insisted the deal had to close now. Time was up,” one of the officials said.
Israel-Hamas war hits Biden’s rating
The war will be a political doom for Biden if more innocent Gazans are blown to pieces. His foreign policy has been increasingly criticised with Ukraine’s counteroffensive losing steam before strong Russian defence and unrelenting aerial and artillery bombardment despite the US having poured $76.8 billion into the abyss. Biden’s foreign policy debacles aside, his overall approval rating has been dangerously low. From 49 per cent to 57 per cent during the first eight months of his presidency, his approval rating has been consistently below 50 per cent since August 2021.
Biden’s rating hit the third-lowest at 39 per cent on November 7 after reaching rock bottom at 36 per cent in mid-2022, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. An October Gallup poll showed his second-lowest overall rating at 37 per cent, an identical reading in April, with the worst 11-point fall among Democrats to 75 per cent. Including the latest fall, Biden’s approval has tanked below 40 per cent four times in 33 Gallup readings since he took office. A November 10-14 national NBC News poll showed that only 40 per cent of registered voters approve of Biden’s job performance, representing Biden’s all-time high in disapproval at 57 per cent.
More voters disapprove of Biden’s foreign policy miscalculations, especially after the Israel-Hamas war. According to the Reuters/Ipsos poll, the share of voters who rated war and foreign conflicts as the No. 1 problem rose to 8 per cent in November from 4 per cent in October as Israel attacked Hamas. Similarly, three months into the Russia-Ukraine war, 9 per cent of the respondents had cited war and foreign conflict as their top concern in April 2022. As per the NBC News poll, 62 per cent of voters, including 30 per cent of Democrats, disapprove of Biden’s foreign policy. Only 33 per cent approved of his handling of foreign policy, down 8 points from September.
Gallup highlighted the division in the Democratic Party due to Biden “aligning too closely with Israel and not doing enough for the Palestinians”. “Some prominent Democratic lawmakers and protesters around the US have called for Biden to do more to help the millions of Palestinians who are in need of humanitarian aid as Israel attempts to eradicate Hamas,” Gallup said.
“The daily results strongly suggest that Democrats’ approval of Biden fell sharply in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks by Hamas and Biden’s promise of full support for Israel on the same day,” it added.
Only 34 per cent of all voters, including only 51 per cent of Democrat Party supporters, approve of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, the NBC News survey showed. Only 47 per cent of American voters think that Israel’s action in Gaza is defensive and justified and 30 per cent believe that it has crossed the red line. A majority (55 per cent) of voters support military assistance to Israel but almost half (49 per cent) of Democrats oppose it.
The war has imperilled Biden’s political future, already clouded by concerns about the economy, the problem of immigrants and the staggering financial aid to Ukraine.
A majority of Americans want a ceasefire. An October survey by progressive think tank Data for Progress showed that 66 per cent of voters, including 80 per cent of Democrats, 57 per cent of independents and 56 per cent of Republicans, want a truce.
What’s more worrying for Biden is the first-time favourable attitude of Democrats towards Palestinians. A March Gallup poll found that their sympathies are more with Palestinians (49 per cent) than Israelis (38 per cent)—an 11-point increase since 2022. Moreover, sympathy towards Palestinians among adult Americans is at a new high of 31 per cent compared to a new low of 15 per cent against them since 2005.
Biden’s biggest shock is that voters in the six swing states believe that Trump can better handle the Israel-Palestine problem. An October New York Times/Siena Poll showed that 50 per cent of voters in the six battlegrounds feel that Trump can better handle the crisis than Biden (39 per cent). In Arizona, 51 per cent of voters trust Trump more compared to 40 per cent for Biden, Georgia 47 per cent vs 36 per cent, Michigan 49 per cent vs 37 per cent, Nevada 52 per cent vs 38 per cent, Pennsylvania 53 per cent vs 37 per cent and in Wisconsin 47 per cent vs 44 per cent.
Biden’s Muslim voters disenchanted
Chants of “Biden, Biden, you can’t hide. We charge you with genocide” resonated at a rally in Detroit, Michigan, this month calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. “America, you promised the world that all men and women are created equal. Yet somehow we find billions of dollars to dehumanise Palestinians,” said Democratic state representative Abraham Aiyash, the majority floor leader in the Michigan House.
Michigan, having the sixth largest Muslim population, is one of the six current swing states—Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Wisconsin—that will decide the 2024 election. Trump leads Biden in five of the states except for Wisconsin.
A 2017 data showed that there are 3.45 million Muslims in the US, 1.1 per cent of the total population. The 10 states with the largest Muslim populations are:
- New York: 724,475
- California: 504,056
- Illinois: 473,792
- New Jersey: 321,652
- Texas: 313,209
- Michigan: 241,828
- Maryland: 188,914
- Virginia: 169,371
- Pennsylvania: 149,561
- Massachusetts: 131,749
In the 2020 election, 64 per cent of Muslims countrywide voted for Biden with a little less than 70 per cent of Michigan’s more than 200,000 Arab- and Muslim-American voters backing him. Biden snagged the state from Trump by 154,000 votes compared to the latter’s 2016 winning margin of 10,000 votes.
However, the Israel-Hamas war has changed the equation. Biden’s support among Arab-American voters has drastically fallen from 59 per cent to 17 per cent, a 42 per cent decrease from 2020, due to the war, according to a recent survey conducted by John Zogby Strategies for the think tank Arab American Institute (AAI). The polls showed that 41 per cent of the respondents would vote for Trump, up 5 points from 2020.
“Two-thirds of Arab-Americans have a negative view of President Biden’s response to the current violence in Palestine and Israel … A strong majority of Arab-Americans believe the US should call for a ceasefire on the current violence,” the survey stated. “The dissatisfaction with President Biden is really quite significant. His numbers are dangerously low—more so than I’ve ever seen for a Democratic candidate for president,” AAI president James Zogby said during a virtual briefing.
Biden’s dramatic fall in support has also impacted the voter’s party preference. For the first time in 26 years of polling Arab-American voters, 32 per cent identified as Republicans as opposed to just 23 per cent as Democrats. “In 2008 and 2016, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by two to one.”
The war has also triggered safety concerns in the community with 80 per cent of Arab-Americans concerned that it “will provoke anti-Arab bigotry”.
Before the ceasefire announcement, some Muslim- and Arab-American groups had threatened to withhold donations and votes for Biden unless he immediately secured a truce. “The situation in Gaza has reached a critical juncture, nearing a complete humanitarian catastrophe, and we implore you to take immediate action to secure a ceasefire by Tuesday, October 31st at 5 p.m. EST,” the National Muslim Democratic Council (NMDC), which includes Democratic Party leaders from Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, warned Biden in an open letter on October 30.
Threatening to turn key states like Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Iowa, Florida and Tennessee “red [vote for the GOP]”, the NMDC wrote: “Simply put, as Gaza turns red, so could crucial battleground states.” The Council pledged to mobilise Muslim, Arab and allied voters to “withhold endorsement, support or votes for
any candidate who did not advocate for a ceasefire and endorse the Israeli offensive against the
Palestinian people”.
Giving the example of Michigan, which has 16 crucial electoral votes and was decided by only a 2.6 per cent margin of victory in 2020, the Council wrote: “We will mobilise increased voter turnout to make our voices heard.”
Biden knows that progressive and young voters might back out if he continues to staunchly support Israel and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsens. With Trump coming out guns blazing at campaign rallies and targeting his rival’s frailty, migrant and economic policies and mishandling of the Ukraine war, a ceasefire, however short, could provide some reprieve from the deluge of negative publicity swamping Biden.
The writer is a freelance journalist with two decades of experience and comments primarily on foreign affairs. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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