What the Israel-Hamas war means for 2024

Friday, October 27, 2023

Hey readers,

It’s special Sentences guest Nicole Narea. Here’s what we’re following today:

Up first: How the Israel-Hamas war is impacting Joe Biden’s poll numbers.

In other news: US airstrikes in Syria, the ongoing search for the Maine shooter, and a Biden primary challenger.

We’ll see you in your inbox on Monday.

The Israel-Hamas war is a political curveball for Biden

A woman blows a kiss at a poster thanking US President Joe Biden for his support for Israel following his October 17, 2023, visit to the country.  Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images

President Joe Biden’s full-throated support for Israel as it begins ground operations in Gaza is proving polarizing in the US. The question is whether it will cost him votes in the 2024 election.

The lowdown: According to an October 26 Gallup poll, Biden’s approval rating has fallen to 37 percent overall and 75 percent among Democrats, down from 41 percent and 86 percent, respectively, over the last month. The drop comes after Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls Gaza, launched its attack on Israel. It’s his lowest approval rating among Democrats and overall since he took office. 

• Biden’s response to the Israel-Hamas war appears to be a factor in those numbers, particularly among Democrats, but Americans also have a bleak outlook on the economy. 
• Biden’s administration also faces other challenges: Increasing numbers of migrants are arriving on the southern border, and public support has dropped for his entreaties for additional funding to the war in Ukraine.
• Support for Biden’s approach to Israel varies widely across generations in the US: Just 48 percent of Gen Z and millennials — voters who tend to lean Democratic — say the US should publicly voice support of Israel compared to 63 percent of Gen Xers, 83 percent of baby boomers, and 86 percent of the Silent Generation, according to an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll.

The stakes: It’s not clear that criticism of Biden’s response to the war will actually hurt him in 2024. Bernie Porn, a pollster based in Michigan, told Vox that it was already a close race in the critical battleground state even before the Israel-Hamas war broke out, and it’s unlikely that Biden’s pro-Israel stance will tip the scales in favor of GOP frontrunner and former President Donald Trump even in places like Dearborn, home to the largest Arab American community in the US.  

“The Biden numbers were below where he should be,” he said. “When you take the Israeli situation into account, it is certainly understandable that Biden has been criticized for the situation. Still, it's gonna be all be contrasted with what Trump would have done.”

Biden won 74 percent of the vote in Dearborn in 2020, Porn said. And he may be able to make an effective argument that, by pressuring the Israelis behind the scenes, he was able to delay their plans for a ground invasion and secure some humanitarian aid for Palestinians trapped in Gaza, even if that aid has so far proved woefully insufficient. 

Biden can also point to actions that the Trump administration took that harmed Israel-Palestine relations, including relocating the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and tacitly accepting Israel’s illegal settlements in the West Bank. 

Still, a lot could change before 2024.

“I don't think that he's necessarily in a bad position in terms of what he has said or done, although, clearly, anecdotally, there are a lot of concerns among Arab Americans about his position. But it's a little early,” Porn said.

US airstrikes in Syria

Al-Tanf military base in Syria, one of two allied military installations targeted in recent attacks, according to the US. Lolita Baldor/AP Photo.

In the days since the Israel-Hamas war broke out, US military personnel have sustained rocket and drone attacks at bases in eastern Syria and western Iraq. On Thursday, the US responded with airstrikes on a warehouse and bunker that it said housed weapons for the group behind the attacks.

• An American died of cardiac arrest as a result of the attacks, and more than 20 Americans have been injured in the attacks. [Time]
• The Islamic Resistance of Iraq, a group of Iraqi militant groups, has claimed responsibility for the attacks on the US bases, but there is speculation among experts that the organization is just a front for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. [AP News]
• Iran has threatened a violent response to Israel’s attacks on Gaza via its network of militant resistance groups. [Washington Post]
• “If attacks by Iran’s proxies against US forces continue, we will not hesitate to take further necessary measures to protect our people,” said US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. The show of force may help dissuade Iran and other regional actors from getting involved in the Israel-Hamas war. [Guardian]

• Palestinians are worried that they’ll be permanently displaced from Gaza. The memory of the 1948 Nakba in which more than 700,000 Palestinian refugees were driven out of their homes amid the creation of the state of Israel is still fresh. [Vox]
• The manhunt for the gunman in Wednesday’s mass shooting in Maine is still underway. He killed 18 people and injured 13 in Lewiston, Maine, and police say that he should be considered armed and dangerous. [CBS]
• Ivanka Trump will have to testify in her dad’s fraud case. The New York judge presiding over the $250 million case concerning Trump’s business dealings has compelled her to do so against the protestations of the former president’s lawyers. [NBC]
• Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips is challenging Biden for the 2024 Democratic nomination. Like many primary challengers to incumbent presidents before him, his campaign is likely to fail. [Politico]

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Today’s crossword

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