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Biden needs to establish a red line on Gaza -- with Netanyahu [1]

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Date: 2023-10-25  

America’s policies and politics on Israel is one of those topics that frequently rips my brain asunder:

PRO-Israel Israel has a right to exist and to live in peace, free from missile attacks and terrorism . Hamas is a horrific terror organization and the Palestinian Authority has no power (and little desire) to rid the area of this scourge. Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and one of America’s most important allies. The Palestinian people generally (and Mahmoud Abbas specifically) do not recognize Israel’s right to exist.

PRO-Palestine Palestinians have a right to self-determination. Israel’s recent attacks have killed hundreds of innocent civilians. Amnesty International has documented unlawful attacks , including the killing of entire families. The current Israeli government is the most extreme right-wing in the nation’s history. Cabinet members have called for territorial expansion and Palestinian Arab expulsion. Israel has greatly limited the Palestinians ability to develop infrastructure, to move freely, and to have an independent economy. Israel has abused eminent domain and destroyed Palestinian villages to permit Israeli settlements — thus muddying the state-to-“state” borders.



But as fraught as the region may be in its own right, the agony pales in comparison to what is happening in the U.S. as a direct consequence of those red-hot battlefields half a world away: Biden is losing young voters.

SLATE’s Alexander Sammon wrote a piece yesterday about the young voter phenomenon, and a Quinnipiac poll stood out like a beacon — 25% favorable from the under-35 sector for Joe Biden. A Washington Post-ABC poll (thought to be an outlier, but nonetheless scary) had even worse news — Trump beat Biden by double-digits in the under-35 crowd.

While the election is more than a year away, and many young voters may be only temporarily registering their opposition to Biden’s policies, he desperately needs this demographic in 2024.

To help Millennials and Gen-Z voters return to the fold, Biden should do one thing and do it quickly — publicly establish a red line for Israel and Netanyahu and don’t back down from it. He should tell Israel privately and with absolute certainty that the USA will not condone war crimes, and Israel will pay a price if they pursue strategies that include such illegal elements.

Netanyahu is one of the more authoritarian leaders in the world today (and that’s a good reason for all Americans to distrust him), but thankfully, Israel’s democratic institutions seem to keeping Netanyahu’s anti-democracy tendencies in check.

By taking a strong stand for ethics (and arguably against Netanyahu himself) Biden will go a long way to winning back young voters. The votes he might lose among Israel hawks would be small, because they probably weren’t going to vote for him anyway.

However, once Biden draws his red line, he should be very careful not to “do an Obama” and ignore it.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/25/2201532/-Biden-needs-to-establish-a-red-line-on-Gaza-with-Netanyahu?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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