Monday 23 October 2023

Will the Israel/Hamas war boost Biden's chances of winning the 2024 election?

It sounds cynical but in foreign policy, as well as with domestic issues, everything has political repercussions for those involved in the decision-making. Thus, the disastrous Israeli intelligence failure to spot Hamas plotting the attacks on October 7 could eventually be the downfall of Benjamin Netanyahu. But could Joe Biden's strong but cautionary support towards Israel following the Hamas atrocities boost his second-term presidency hopes? It's too early to predict but Biden's approach so far would seem to be both practical and sensible. In other words, he has given his full support for Israel's determination to eliminate Hamas, including by a ground invasion but he has appealed for the Israeli military to be as selective as possible and not to indiscriminately bomb and shell Gaza, packed as it is with more than two million Palestinian people, men, women and children, albeit the majority of them supposedly taking shelter in the "safer" south. Provided Israel abides by Biden's wishes, then when the war comes to an end it may well help Biden to win the 2024 election. But many civilians in Gaza have already died as a result of persistent Israeli bombing, so there is no guarantee that the Biden appeal will play a part in actually saving lives. Bombing from the air, even with precision-guided bombs, inevitably kills civilians. That is the bitter message of every war. So if the retaliatory strikes by Israel against Hamas lead to thousands of civilian deaths, Biden might well lose the 2024 election.

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