ANALYSIS: Biden Faces Party Rift Over Hamas–Israel Conflict

President Joe Biden addresses the nation on the conflict between Israel and Hamas and the Russian invasion of Ukraine from the Oval Office on Oct. 19, 2023. (Jonathan Ernst/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

President Joe Biden’s response to the recent Hamas–Israel conflict has placed him in a delicate political position, with divisions emerging within his own Democratic Party.

Although his initial show of support for Israel aligns with American public opinion, the dynamics within the party could become increasingly complex if the war drags on.

Initial polls indicate that most Americans sympathize with Israel in the aftermath of a devastating attack by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7 that claimed the lives of at least 1,500 civilians, including 32 Americans.

The president’s strong support for Israel and his personal visit to the country have largely mirrored this sentiment.

President Biden is performing “brilliantly” in a difficult moment and demonstrating “moral leadership,” according to Ann Lewis, a Democrat strategist who served as White House communications director in the Clinton administration.

“I expect President Biden to continue on the path he has begun. This president, who took his family to see the camps to understand the Holocaust, is not going to back away because of political criticism,” she told The Epoch Times.

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However, Brian Seitchik, a Republican strategist, pointed to a widening schism within the Democratic Party, owing to the anti-Israel stance of some hard-left progressives.

“The Democrats are certainly divided over Israel. There is a very strong anti-Israel, anti-Semitic faction that exists in the Democratic Party,” Mr. Seitchik told The Epoch Times.

“That’s a fairly new strain. Support for Israel really used to be a bipartisan issue.”

The recent resignation of Josh Paul, a former State Department official, in protest of President Biden’s response to the Hamas–Israel conflict reflected the frustration within some quarters of Washington.

Some progressive members of the Democratic Party have called for an end to violence and urged the president to stop sending aid to Israel.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who’s the only Palestinian American member of Congress, has criticized the administration’s response to the conflict. She delivered an emotional speech on Oct. 18 to her supporters outside the Capitol, expressing her dissent.

“President Biden, not all of America is with you on this one, and you need to wake up and understand that we are literally watching people daily commit genocide, and we still stand by and say nothing,” she shouted into a microphone.

Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) also criticized U.S. foreign policy in a statement, advocating an end to “support for Israeli military occupation and apartheid.”

She’s leading House progressives with the Ceasefire Now Resolution, calling for de-escalation of the conflict and humanitarian assistance to Gaza.

A United Party?

According to Mark Mellman, a Democrat pollster and strategist, the vast majority of the public and congressional Democrats back President Biden on Israel, making the opposition from some progressive members irrelevant for the time being.

“For now, at least, the president has a unified party behind him. They’re unified in their support for Israel and unified in their understanding of the need to remove Hamas from power. And that could change over time,” he told The Epoch Times.

Foreign policy is virtually never a dominant issue in an election cycle, according to Mr. Mellman, especially when there are no Americans on the battlefield.

“This is very different than, for example, Iraq or Vietnam. Those are conflicts in which the United States was directly involved. This is not such a conflict at the moment,” he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greets U.S. President Joe Biden upon his arrival at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport on Oct. 18, 2023. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

The White House didn’t mince words in responding to progressive lawmakers who blamed Israel following the Hamas attacks.

“We’re going to continue to be very clear: We believe they are wrong, we believe they’re repugnant, and we believe they’re disgraceful,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Oct. 11.

“There are not two sides here.”

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) also broke with his progressive allies and sided with the president. He rejected calls for a ceasefire.

“Now is not the time to talk about a cease-fire. We must support Israel in their efforts to eliminate the Hamas terrorists,” he wrote on Oct. 18 on X, formerly known as Twitter.

He also took aim at progressive members of the House for blaming Israel for the recent hospital bombing in Gaza, calling their actions “truly disturbing.” He said he believes that Senate Democrats are united on Israel.

“I am not aware of any of my colleagues on our side in the Senate who share those kinds of views of certain members of the party in the House,” Mr. Fetterman told The Epoch Times when asked about the views of his progressive allies in the House.

According to a new CNN poll, about 71 percent of Americans sympathize with the Israeli people following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and believe that the Israeli government’s military response was justifiable.

The poll also found that Democrats were more likely than Republicans to express a lot of sympathy for the Palestinian people.

However, some believe that if the conflict continues, support for Israel could dwindle quickly, particularly among Democrats.

Support for Palestinians

Republican political strategist Ford O'Connell said the strong support for Palestinians among Democrat voters could pose a problem for President Biden in the long run.

Democrats have grown increasingly sympathetic to Palestinians during the past decade, he said, citing a Gallup poll in March that shows that 49 percent of Democrats sympathized with Palestinians, compared with 38 percent who sympathized with Israelis.

In contrast, 11 percent of Republicans and 32 percent of independents expressed sympathy for Palestinians in the March survey.

“I think part of the reason we’re at this war is because, unfortunately, how naive the Biden administration has been about Iran,” Mr. O’Connell said. “I mean, the world is literally on fire.”

If the conflict between Israel and Hamas isn’t resolved quickly, President Biden will “have a real mess on his hands politically.”

Mr. Seitchik concurred, noting that anti-Israel sentiment within the Democratic Party could alienate pro-Israel voters, including those in key swing states such as Michigan, Arizona, and Wisconsin, as well as in GOP-leaning Florida.

“This anti-Israel strain that is so aggressively running through the Democratic Party could cause them serious problems,” he said.

Another poll by The Wall Street Journal and Ipsos conducted after the Hamas attack shows an upsurge in support for Israel in its longstanding conflicts with Palestinians: 42 percent of respondents believe that the United States should side with Israel, the highest amount since 2002, while only 3 percent believe it should take the Palestinians’ side.

Favorable views of both the Israeli people and their government have increased in this latest survey, although younger Americans, a crucial part of the Democrat base, exhibit less support for Israel than older generations do.

If the ongoing Hamas–Israel conflict persists, President Biden could face difficulties both within his party and in garnering support from certain segments of the electorate, especially those who sympathize with the Palestinian cause.