Unrest simmers on US campuses over Israel’s continuing slaughter of civilians in Gaza, and President Joe Biden is running out of road, when it comes to helping candidate Joe Biden win the narrow contest with his rival Donald Trump in the election to the US presidency forthcoming in November.
The driving force behind the unrelenting attacks on Gaza is Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu is under pressure from his ultra-orthodox allies in his ruling coalition, on whom he depends to stay afloat on a slender majority. These religious fundamentalists make no secret of their ambition to occupy all of Palestine, the West Bank as well as the Gaza Strip. They support settler violence in the West Bank and encourage the Israeli armed forces to not intervene when armed Israeli settlers attack and kill Palestinians. They are driven by the belief that all of Palestinian territory, comprising the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, is part of the land the God of the Jews had promised them, and it is their divine duty to rid the land of the 3.1 million Palestinians who live there.
These ultra-orthodox believers are exempt from the military service that is compulsory for every other Israeli at a young age. Their job is only to study religious texts and perform their religious duty, which, naturally, extends to ridding the Promised Land of extraneous presence.
Netanyahu has been under attack from his countrymen on several counts, ranging from allegations of personal corruption to attempts to undermine judicial authority and strip the courts of the power to question government decisions. The intelligence and military failure that led to the October 7 terrorist attack by the Hamas, who killed 1,200 people, and kidnapped some 250 men and women over several hours of unchecked violence, calls for accountability. Netanyahu will be the one to be held to account. But all this will happen when the war is over.
Netanyahu, therefore, has an interest in prolonging the war. He can hope that some spectacular success against the Hamas would redeem his reputation. Right now, he is going ahead with his plan to attack Rafah, the Gaza Strip’s southernmost town bordering Egypt, where Palestinians fleeing six and a half months of violence in the Norh have taken refuge. President Biden wants Netanyahu to hold his hand. More shedding of civilian blood would cause public anger to rise in the US against America’s unconditional support for Israel, involving direct military support against Iranian and Houthi attacks, arms supplies and financial aid.
If the planned attack on Rafah kills thousands more of Palestinian civilians, causing the revulsion of ordinary Arabs in the neighbourhood to boil over into protests against their own governments for their inaction in the face this slaughter, the Arab governments could be forced to take some action. Such action carries the high risk of raising the price of oil.
The US is today the world’s largest producer of oil and US companies would benefit from a rise in oil prices. However, American consumers would not. Biden already faces heat on account of the steep rise in the cost of living. The latest data on inflation, as measured by the Personal Consumption Expenditure Price Index, favoured by the US Fed, rose 2.7% in March, well above the Fed target of containing inflation at 2%. Any rise in the price of oil would be unwelcome.
In the seven swing states that would determine the presidential race in November, polling suggests that support for persisting with unconditional aid to Israel is slipping continuously. Young people, particularly, college students, including large numbers of Jewish students, are worked up over the killing of civilians in Gaza.
Netanyahu’s interest in escalating the war and attacking Rafah goes directly against Biden’s interest in buying peace with his young voters and containing the cost of living.
For Biden to placate young voters, he must be seen to play peacemaker and bringing both Israel and Palestine closer to a two-state solution. If Netanyahu presses ahead with his planned attack on Rafah, Biden would appear as a helpless leader of a superpower, who is bullied by the unpopular leader of a tiny country far away in the Arabian desert into doing what he does not want to do, while also inflicting inflation on his people.
That could well be the last nail in the coffin of Biden’s re-election bid. Will he allow Netanyahu to walk all over him, and give up the Presidency? President Johnson, confronted with widespread protests against the Vietnam war, had the grace to withdraw himself from the presidential race. Biden’s prospect is to achieve not grace, but the ignominy of defeat to an irredeemably unelectable Donald Trump.
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