It will be remembered, I hope, as the embrace that sank a cowardly president.
It was mid-October. US President Joe Biden made the necessary pilgrimage to Tel Aviv to show that his unwavering support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was more than just lip service.
His grateful host, flustered with excitement, waited for Biden to emerge from the bulging hull of Air Force One.
Besides the loud harangues of a crowd of reporters nearby, the roar of White House engines in the sky drowned out much of the chatter below. Netanyahu nodded to his companion, President Isaac Herzog, while an army of stoic Israeli and American bodyguards stood ready to intervene.
After about a minute, Biden appeared with his aviator sunglasses in hand. He paused for a moment at the top of the plane’s steps to extend his hand to Netanyahu, like a bride-to-be to her husband.
Then, looking pale and tired, Biden walked down the aisle – so to speak – and towards his beaming lover. The two men embraced, with Biden patting Netanyahu on the back. The delighted Prime Minister said something. Biden offered a short and perfunctory response.
Considering the hugs between politicians, this one seemed long and sincere. Israel’s indispensable boss had arrived in person to verify, once again, that America stood by its equally indispensable ally.
But whether Biden and his camp knew it or not, in that moment, the president’s already precarious political fate may have been sealed by an image now ingrained in consciousness and memory — the unintended consequence of an act of “brother” type solidarity in an airport. tarmac in Israel.
The unmistakable irony, of course, is that Biden had rushed to Tel Aviv to confirm his camaraderie with an indicted authoritarian whom he had treated for years with suspicion and, at times, contempt.
The past was apparently over.
Yet just weeks later, the “hug” has become a defining symbol of Biden’s blatant hypocrisy and obstinacy.
A president who denounced Russia’s ruthless aggression and outrages in Ukraine now defends – without reservation – Israel’s cruelty in Gaza and beyond, while remarkably praising the necessity and virtues of the cataclysmic outrages committed largely against Palestinian children, the infirm and the elderly by America’s indispensable ally.
Biden’s hypocrisy and stubbornness have not only offended but also infuriated crucial groups – Young Democrats and Arab Americans, among others – that the aging commander in chief must support if he intends to win re-election in less than 12 months counting from today.
Recent polling suggests that Biden and his myopic corporations have underestimated the breadth and visceral depth of the powerful reaction to his wholehearted support for Israel and his warm embrace of a calculating, media-savvy politician that millions of ‘Israelis can’t stand it.
Biden’s approval rating fell as low as 40% among all registered voters following the hug — an all-time low since his inauguration.
This animosity is primarily driven, pollsters say, by voters’ near-total rejection of Biden’s embrace of Israel and Netanyahu’s goal of destroying Hamas – regardless of the nature, scale and number appalling loss of life that Americans and the world have witnessed.
“I don’t support his support for Israel,” Meg Furey, 40, a Democrat from Austin, Texas, told NBC News.
She is not alone.
A clear majority of Democrats believe that Israel has “gone too far” in its revenge plans, in fact to erase occupied Gaza and, little by little, the West Bank.
Indeed, a staggering 70 percent of Democrats ages 18 to 40 have made it clear to pollsters that they “disapprove” — to put it charitably — of Biden’s “handling” of the “war” between Israel and Gaza.
“This poll is stunning, and it’s stunning because of the impact of the war between Israel and Hamas on Biden,” one pollster said.
The poll is also a resounding rebuttal to the Biden administration’s belief that its diplomatic and military engagement against Israel in light of the deadly Hamas attack on October 7 would prove popular and would be welcomed as a necessary expression of ” Israel’s right to defend itself” without limits or any measure of restraint dictated by humanitarian conventions and international law.
Other figures are even more sobering.
Arab-American support for Biden is quickly evaporating. In a poll taken in late October, only 17 percent of Arab Americans supported the president, a stunning drop of 42 percent from three years earlier.
As the faltering images of the limp bodies of dead, bloodied Palestinian children, covered in filth, pulled from the pancake-like rubble continue to flood social media and television screens, this jarring figure is sure to decline further.
The potential existential political consequences of this pervasive anger and alienation may begin to be felt by Biden and his denial campaign team.
Despite numerous indictments at the federal and state level, Donald Trump remains a stubborn, even emboldened, threat. A series of surveys show the former president ahead nationally and building sizable leads in a series of swing states where Biden prevailed in 2020.
The mood and momentum are on Trump’s side.
To stem the bleeding and confront the gaping, bitter discontent, Biden has lately attempted to reposition himself as a sort of honest broker who understands and is sensitive to the toll the “war” has taken on both Israelis and Palestinians.
It appears that Biden wrote two letters. One was addressed to “pro-Israel” Americans, in which Biden, predictably, reiterated that “the United States stands with Israel.” The other appealed to “pro-Palestinian” Americans, insisting: “We mourn the many innocent Palestinians who have been killed. »
This hackneyed, almost pathetic gamble failed – miserably.
I doubt any young Democrat or Arab American has been moved to reconsider their pointed and poignant objections to what Israel has done to Gaza by Biden’s performative and hollow nonsense.
It’s too late. The damage has been done and it will not be repaired by a cliché letter written on White House letterhead.
So, fortunately, I am convinced that Biden is finished.
The other delightful and unmistakable irony is that Biden likely gave up the presidency, ostensibly to “save” Israel and support a prime minister who, in due and deliberate time, is certain to lose the position and powers he has long enjoyed and which he abused.
Soon these strutting presidents and prime ministers will face the harsh, emasculating wrath of the citizens they claim to lead.
For my part, I look forward to such a deserving and satisfying reward.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.
