WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden significantly changed its policy towards Israel this week, threatening to withhold US weapons if the Israeli government moves forward with a full-scale invasion of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, while also pledging “firm” support for the Jewish state in a speech condemning the rise of anti-Semitism.
But Biden’s nuanced stance has created different lines of division within his own Democratic Party. The president now faces a barrage of new criticism from some lawmakers and voters in battleground states, where his stance on Israel poses the greatest political risk to his efforts to win re-election.
“It’s starting to look like he’s supporting the wrong side,” Dovid Jacobowitz, a Democrat from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, told NBC News. Jacobowitz has not said whether he will vote for Biden in November.
Nasir Raza, an undecided voter from Scottsdale, Arizona, who voted for Biden in 2020, said the president’s change of stance on Israel “may be too late for a lot of people I know,” but added: “I can still vote for Joe Biden if I see a complete ceasefire, if I see hope for the Palestinians to remain there, to have their own rights and their homeland for themselves.”
Over the seven months since the start of the war in Gaza, Biden’s staunch support for Israel has alienated him from some key supporters, including young voters and Arab-Americans, and earned him praise from others who appreciated his pro-Israel stance. The change in his position this week comes at a turning point in the war. Negotiations over a ceasefire in Gaza in exchange for the release of some hostages still held by Hamas are fragile at best, and Israel is ready to enter Rafah despite Biden’s repeated objections.
It’s still an open question whether his handling of the conflict affects how voters decide in November. A key concern for Biden’s re-election effort is that voters who oppose his approach stay home, potentially tipping the scales for former President Donald Trump in crucial battleground states like Michigan, Arizona and Pennsylvania.
This week, Biden articulated positions on Israel that ranged from saying on Tuesday that the US would be unwavering in its commitment “to the security of the Jewish people, the security of Israel”, to a day later promising to withhold weaponry that could be used in an offensive military operation in Rafah. The president, in an interview with CNN, specifically cited large bombs, some weighing 2,000 pounds. He also acknowledged that recently stopped a new shipment of these bombs to Israel and admitted for the first time since the start of the war that these US weapons had killed innocent Palestinians.
“Civilians were killed in Gaza as a result of these bombs,” Biden said on Wednesday.
For Ricardo Serna, president of the Arizona Young Democrats who remains undecided in the 2024 elections, Biden’s move this week is not enough.
“It’s a step in the right direction,” Serna said. “But there needs to be a much more permanent solution to this if we don’t want Donald Trump to be re-elected in November. And I fear that unless that happens, we will see another Donald Trump presidency.”
Trump said Thursday he “wouldn’t do what Biden did” and questioned why Jewish voters would support Biden. “If you are a Jew and you vote for him, I say you are ashamed,” Trump said in an interview with North Carolina’s Spectrum News 1.
John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, dismissed criticism of Biden’s position. “The argument that we are somehow turning away from Israel or are unwilling to help them defeat Hamas simply does not fit the facts,” Kirby told reporters on Thursday.
A senior administration official emphasized Thursday that Biden is “motivated by our national security interests and our values, not politics.”
The reactions from two of Biden’s allies reflect the spectrum of views on Israel and the war in Gaza among Democrats that he must navigate as he seeks to unify his party before the November elections.
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., a progressive Biden surrogate who disagreed with his handling of the conflict, praised his threat to withhold arms from Israel. “I think this move by the president will be welcomed by many progressives who have been advocating for a course correction,” Khanna said.
However, Senator John Fetterman, a Democrat from battleground Pennsylvania who is a vocal supporter of Israel, criticized Biden for signaling he would suspend weapons if Israel launched a major invasion at Rafah.
“I strongly disagree, and it’s deeply disappointing,” Fetterman said of the president’s policy.
In yet another twist in the way Biden’s change of stance has shaken views of him within his own party, one of the most outspoken critics of his handling of the conflict in Gaza, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., called it “an important turning point in this war.”
“I congratulate the president for heeding this call to ensure the protection of innocent Palestinian lives and refusing to supply weapons to ensure that no more civilians are killed in Gaza as a result of US bombs,” Jayapal said on Thursday.
Jill Zipin, president and co-founder of a Jewish political action committee in Pennsylvania that has endorsed Biden, Democratic Jewish Outreach, said she agrees with his “targeted approach” to Israel.
“I believe the Biden administration and the Democratic Party have a deep commitment to Israel’s security, and what they are doing here is acting in Israel’s best interests,” Zipin said.
While many progressive Democrats and younger voters have criticized Biden’s Israel policy following the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack — with some vowing to sit out the November elections — others say it will ultimately not affect the your vote.
Alex Toren, a 20-year-old student from Grand Rapids, Michigan, said he disagrees with Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza and hopes his decision to halt an arms shipment to Israel last week is a permanent change. (The White House said no final decision on whether to deploy these weapons has been made.)
“But the truth is that Trump would be worse,” Toren said. “It’s likely, in my opinion, that nothing will happen between now and November that would make me not vote for the president or not go to the polls in November.”
David Jacobson, a Democrat from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, said Biden’s changing stance on Israel this week smacks of political calculation.
“I thought Biden’s withholding of military aid to Israel was a serious and terrible misstep,” Jacobson said. “It appears that Biden is likely reacting to political pressure from the left wing of the Democratic Party with an election imminent, and it is seriously regrettable that he feels the need to publicly compromise Israel’s security in order to feel more secure about his electability. . .”
Still, Jacobson said he plans to vote for Biden in November.
This article was originally published in NBCNews. with
