Candidate Uncommitted is putting real pressure on Biden's support for Netanyahu's war on the people of Gaza

Incumbents would understandably prefer not to have any challengers in their partisan primaries.

But primaries are important because party members should have a say in the nomination. And weathering a challenge in a primary can make the incumbent a stronger candidate in the general election.

In the current Democratic Presidential primaries, the most important pro-peace and pro-immigrant-rights candidate turns out to be “Uncommitted.”

With almost 90% of the expected votes counted in Minnesota [in the March 5 primary], 19% of Democrats marked their ballots "uncommitted" to show their opposition to Biden's backing for Israel's attacks against Hamas in Gaza.

The "uncommitted" vote was also on the Democratic ballot in six other Super Tuesday states - Alabama, Colorado, Iowa, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Tennessee.

Support in those states ranged from 3.9% in Iowa to 12.7% in North Carolina, with more than 85% of the votes counted in each of those states, according to Edison Research. ,,,

Students, suburban women and liberal Jewish activists were among those who joined Muslim Americans to vote uncommitted, Edison [Research] said.¹

Alon Pinkas describes how the US’ deference to Israel and to longtime Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has brought events to the current policy train wreck:

Israel has been a trustworthy, dependable U.S. ally for over 50 years. Benjamin Netanyahu is not. His record, his policies, his behavior and his style over the years indicate that he does not see himself as an ally and does not conduct himself as one – and now the United States has finally realized this.² [my emphasis]

A couple of things are worth noticing here. One is that Israel and the US are allies in practice. But Israel and the US have no mutual-defense treaty. Lyndon Johnson during his Presidency offered to negotiate one, but Israel wasn’t interested. Because to have a mutual-defense treaty, it would have to define what territory has to be defended. And Israel was not willing to commit to such a definition.

How trustworthy and dependable Israel has been as an ally to the US is certainly open to discussion. But the US has been “dependable” for Israel to a fault, and never more so than its current support of Netanyahu’s Gaza war policies. Netanyahu is arrogant and reckless. But the US has been way too willing to let him jack the United States around in support of his schemes. And Netanyahu’s preference for Donald Trump and Trump’s Christian-Zionist support of Israel is painfully obvious. In the current situation, to stay out of jail on corruption charges, Netanyahu has a strong incentive to keep the war going and himself in office for as long as possible.

Pinkas points to the shift in American public opinion on Israel, a shift that is mainly due to a far more critical attitude toward Israeli policies among Democratic voters:

A new Gallup poll published Monday shows how much Israel's image has declined: 58 percent of Americans have a "very" or "mostly favorable" view of Israel, which is down from 68 percent last year. This is the lowest favorable rating for Israel in over two decades.

Young American adults, the poll highlights, "show the biggest decline in ratings of Israel, dropping from 64 percent favorable among 18- to 34-year-olds in 2023 to 38 percent. Middle-aged adults (those aged 35 to 54) show a smaller but still significant drop, from 66 percent to 55 percent."

The Uncommitted vote last week in Michigan certainly seems to have convinced the Biden White House that it needs to do more to at least appear to be trying to restrain Israel’s current war on Gaza civilians. And even the Biden campaign can’t ignore the fact that the turnout rate for younger voters is going to be critical for his reelection.

Pinkas also provides a good reminder that the military support of the US for Israel actually began two decades after the War of Independence. The US supported Israel’s independence in 1948, but the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia were their main external military support:

What began with the supply of Skyhawk A-4 and Phantom F-4 fighter aircraft – two major force multipliers promised by the Johnson administration before and delivered after the 1967 Six-Day War – continued with the massive U.S. airlift of weapons and ammunition in October 1973, in the midst of the Yom Kippur War. Then-President Richard Nixon decided at that time to institutionalize an annual military grant of $1.8 billion, together with an additional $1.2 billion in civilian aid.

By the '80s, Israel had been designated a Major Non-NATO Ally and is the leading global recipient of Title 22 U.S. security assistance under the Foreign Military Financing program. Overall, since 1948, the United States has provided Israel with in excess of $150 billion, making it the single largest recipient by a wide margin. In the last 20-30 years, that has been defined as QME, or qualitative military edge, ensuring Israel has guaranteed access to state-of-the-art U.S. weapons platforms and defense technologies. [my emphasis]

Pinkas argues that Israel should have begun adjusting its own policies as China rose over the decades to being since 2011 the major strategic security focus of the United States. But didn’t, largely thanks to the current Prime Minister.

Rather than redefine and repackage [the US-Isreal relationship], Netanyahu did the exact opposite: He broadened the cracks, meddled incessantly in American politics, flirted aimlessly and recklessly with Vladimir Putin's Russia and China, persuaded then-President Donald Trump to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, and was busy making sure Hamas was strong so the Palestinian Authority was too weak to be negotiated with.

As a result, a new strain of thinking emerged. Perhaps there is a divergence in interests, not commonality. Israel's actions are tangentially touching U.S. interests – for example, with regard to Iran – in a way that is inconsistent. This disparity became evident in the aftermath of Black Saturday. The United States interpreted October 7 as a possible turning point requiring attention and a new policy drafting as the Middle East splits into two axes. Israel, meanwhile, seemed to think it could bomb its way back to October 6. [my emphasis]

Israel’s Prime Minister has been blatant since October 6 in thumbing its nose at the US and the Biden Administration. Cosmetic diplomatic posturing isn’t going to solve either the real military problem or Biden’s political problem. Netanyahu has always made it a priority to draw the US into a war with Iran. If Biden allows him to pull the US into that war than Netanyahu wants so badly, it will be disastrous for the US international position and almost certainly fatal to his hopes for re-election.

Branko Marcetic takes the current flurry of public activity on Israel by the Biden Administration as a sign they are getting the political message. Whether they actually act on it in a reasonable way - i.e., cutting off Israel’s military aid - is another question. Mercetic also is a bit salty in noting Kamala Harris’ momentary role as an Administration spokesperson:

Once more, US vice president Kamala Harris is making headlines for something she said in public. Only now, it’s not because of her circuitous rambling about the passage of time, or her passion for the craters of the moon, or for face-planting in a nationally televised interview, or for explaining how context is not like a coconut tree. This time, it’s for seeming to come out ahead of the administration in which she serves on Israel’s war on Gaza, sharply criticizing Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military campaign and calling for an “immediate cease-fire.”³

But, given the circumstances, his reservations about her speech on this issue are understandable:

Harris very nearly made the powerful moment she was grasping for into yet another comical sound bite, in declaring that “there must be an immediate cease-fire” — pause for applause — “for at least the next six weeks.” Besides a perfect comic beat, this and the rest of Harris’s speech were indistinguishable from the rest of the Joe Biden administration and its resistance to calls for a permanent cease-fire. Sure enough, when Netanyahu’s nominally liberal rival Benny Gantz visited Washington the day before the speech, Harris reportedly told him that the White House wished to keep backing Israel’s war but needed Israel to play ball on aid deliveries to be able to do it, adding, “help us help you.” [my emphasis]

But he gives Harris backhanded credit for at least sounding more credible on the current public position than the President:

Compare the minimal attempt Harris made to at least look like she was impassioned and outraged about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza to the bored, perfunctory way Biden, seated and reading almost the entire time from a card, recently tossed off lines meant to do the same — “The loss of life is heartbreaking”; “Innocent lives are on the line and children’s lives are on the line”; “And, uh, I won’t stand by and we won’t let up” — as if reading aloud instructions for a washing machine.

He rightly cautions, “No one should assume all of this isn’t being done with a healthy dollop of cynicism.”

But he is also right in thinking this is a sign of the political pressure Biden is feeling on the issue.

Candidate Uncommitted won’t win the Democratic nomination. But he/she/they has been successful in sending a strong grassroots message to the party leadership. Most voters don’t calculate their feelings issues like this based on some calculation of how big donors or campaign consultants would prefer to see the issues spun.

Marcetic concludes with this observation:

Meanwhile, several reports have now indicated that Biden is just about the singular driving force behind this disastrous policy, with officials venting their frustration that they’re forced to follow his lead. The war has seen unprecedented levels of dissent erupt from within the administration.

The pressure being brought to bear by activists, including the uncommitted vote in Michigan last week that left Biden officials “freaking out,” are clearly striking a nerve within the White House. The president himself seems more and more to be the only one immune to it. [my emphasis]

DW News on the current public diplomacy⁴:

Notes:

1. Bose, Nandita (2024): 'Uncommitted' protest vote over Gaza again raises questions for Biden. Reuters 03/06/2023. <https://www.reuters.com/world/us/minnesota-uncommitted-biden-protest-draws-jewish-muslim-young-voters-2024-03-05/> (Accessed: 2024-06-03).

2. Pinkas, Alon (2024): The U.S. Finally Realized: Netanyahu Broke an Unbreakable Alliance. Haaretz 03/05/2024. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-03-05/ty-article/.premium/the-u-s-finally-realized-netanyahu-broke-an-unbreakable-alliance/0000018e-0df1-dc37-a9ae-dffba1cf0000> (Accessed: 2024-06-03).

3. Marcetic, Branko (2024): The Biden Administration Is Visibly Feeling the Heat on Gaza. Jacobin 03/05/2024. <https://jacobin.com/2024/03/kamala-harris-gaza-cease-fire> (Accessed: 2024-06-03).

4. Benny Gantz at the White House: How united is Israel's government on Gaza? DW News YouTube channel 03/062024. (Accessed: 2024-06-03).