• cyd@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Biden’s Palestine problem is starting to get real traction in the mainstream media, e.g. this opinion piece from the Financial Times today:

    Ten thousand Palestinian children have been killed in the past 100 days, according to Save the Children. Yet Biden’s statement last Sunday calling on Hamas to release its 100 or so hostages made next to no reference to Palestinian suffering. It is as though acknowledgment of their plight would cast doubt on his heartfelt sympathy for the Israeli victims of Hamas’s barbaric rampage on October 7. Many younger Americans, whose enthusiasm Biden will badly need in November, are alienated. That is not to mention Arab-Americans, who are a key voting bloc in several swing states.

    It also plays into Biden’s “old and out of touch” image problem:

    From his earliest days in politics he was one of Israel’s staunchest allies on Capitol Hill. But the circumstances in which his affection was forged have changed drastically. Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin, two Israeli leaders he admired, stood for the antithesis of Netanyahu’s brand of politics… At a fundraiser last month, Biden said: “We’re not going to do a damn thing other than to protect Israel. Not a single thing.”