Joe Biden’s Israel Headache Gets More Intense Amid Democrat Infighting

Democrats are almost split in half over Joe Biden’s handing of the war between Israel and Hamas, a new poll suggests. One Democratic senator warned divisions within the party over America’s involvement in the conflict could hurt the president’s 2024 election chances in some swing states.

It comes as the White House is having to tread a careful line between supporting one of its oldest allies in the Middle East and responding to the outcry over a worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza and calls for a ceasefire. Biden is also having to grapple with attacks on U.S. assets in the region by Iranian-backed militias that threaten to escalate the war. Newsweek approached the White House and the Biden campaign via email for comment on Monday.

Fifty percent of Democrats approve of Biden’s handling of the situation so far, but 46 percent disapprove, according to an Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey of 1,239 American adults, conducted between November 2 and 6. This shows a widening divide among the party faithful since August, when 57 percent supported the administration’s handling of the Israel-Palestine conflict and just 40 percent disapproved.

The poll also found that younger Democrats and ethnic-minority party voters tended to disapprove more of Biden’s handling of the situation, while older Democrats tended to approve. While this fits with previous polling that suggested a shift in sentiments was occurring as a younger generation emerged, these are two groups the president has been attempting to court ahead of next year’s election.

At the start of the conflict, Biden was staunchly pro-Israel in his rhetoric; shortly after the October 7 attack by Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants—which saw around 1,400 Israelis killed, including many civilians, and the capture of around 240 hostages—he said America’s support was steadfast and unwavering.

Since Israel began an intensive campaign of air strikes on Gaza followed by a ground invasion, with the stated aim of eliminating Hamas, there has been outcry, as well as pro-Palestinian demonstrations across the globe. Progressive Democrat representatives called on Biden to deescalate the crisis and call for a ceasefire. So far, over 11,000 Palestinians have been killed in the current conflict, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, according to the Associated Press.

In recent weeks, the president has appeared to taken on a more even-handed tone—recently telling a heckler calling for a ceasefire that he supported a humanitarian “pause”—though one expert previously told Newsweek that this was more likely in light of the realities on the ground in Gaza.

After Biden called for humanitarian pauses, Israel has told the U.S. that there would be four-hour daily pauses to its offensive to allow for the movement of aid and civilians. However, this has not quelled calls for a ceasefire, which Israel has consistently refused and commentators have said would give the well-entrenched militants time to regroup.

Asked about whether continued support for Israel could erode Biden’s election chances in certain tight races, such as Michigan, Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner told CBS News on Sunday that it has the potential to.

Warner said: “If there’s not more consideration about Palestinian casualties, you could see this already tragic event spill over into violence on the West Bank, coming out of Lebanon—and, obviously, making it harder in America to maintain our traditional support for Israel.”

Israel has faced renewed calls for a ceasefire—including from the director of the World Health Organization—as it encroaches on the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. Health officials say the building is running low on medical supplies and water, and risks losing premature babies without power. Israel says Hamas operates its command headquarters under the building and that soldiers delivered fuel to the hospital at the weekend, but it was taken by Hamas militants. Both hospital staff and Hamas deny Israel’s claims.

Michigan has been among the states to see the loudest outpouring of support for the Palestinians. It is home to one of the largest Muslim populations in the U.S.; is represented by the only Palestinian American member of Congress, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who has openly criticized the president; and played host to large pro-Palestinian rallies.

In 2020, Biden carried Michigan with little over 150,000 votes, granting him 16 electoral college votes, and it served as one of the swing states that propelled him to the presidency.

While activists and local Democratic lawmakers in the state have criticized the party’s leadership, political scientists previously told Newsweek they expected Biden to lose few votes over the issue as it was unlikely to be a key issue for the electorate in a year’s time.

However, were the conflict to spiral and drag America into another military intervention in the Middle East, it may well be on the agenda come next November.

The war in Gaza has been used as an excuse by Iranian-backed militias increasingly to attack Israeli posts on its border with Lebanon and U.S. installations in Iraq and Syria, prompting American air strikes.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington D.C.-based military affairs think tank, said that Iranian-backed attacks on U.S. forces in the Middle East had been ongoing since mid-October. However, the ISW added that, after an American air strike on an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps facility in Syria on Wednesday, there had been a steep decline in militant attacks and none recorded on Sunday.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Sunday that the U.S. had conducted further strikes that day on Iranian and Iran-backed militant sites in Syria. He added that Biden directed the operation to “make clear that the United States will defend itself, its personnel, and its interests.”