Gaza. US Democrats with No Compass

After months of gloom over their president’s plummeting popularity and signs of physical decline, U.S. Democrats have regained some confidence in recent days. Crushed by Trump’s arrogance in the Republican field, capable of defeating Ron DeSantis, the man who for three years embodied the alternative to “The Donald” within the Republican Party, supporters of Biden’s candidacy found a smile thanks to some polls that once again gave him an edge over the former president.

The sigh of relief intensified after Joe Biden’s crushing victory in the South Carolina primary, a state specifically chosen by the current occupant of the White House to replace the Iowa caucus. The need for statewide success in the state that brought him victory in 2020 was considered so important early in the campaign that protests and discontent among Iowa Democrats, traditionally the first to start the nomination race, were taken into account.

Biden’s staff was counting on this image success given the looming deadline, which will culminate on Super Tuesday, March 5, when 16 states, including California, will vote. In a race, where Biden is practically opposing himself, given the weakness of the other candidates.

But the good news ends for the moment. Not just because some polling institutes have started checking the approval rating of Robert Kennedy Jr. who, with no party behind him and still ignored by the mainstream, is on par with Biden, trailing Trump by three points. But primarily because the Democratic camp is at the mercy of a poisonous divide on foreign policy.

The conflict between the different souls of the ruling party was caused not by the war in Ukraine, the tacit or enthusiastic consensus on which has not yet been undermined by substantive disagreement, but by the newly exploded conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The brutality of Hamas militants on October 7 was met with a violent response from the Israeli state, which triggered reactions around the world, starting with Israel itself, where Prime Minister Netanyahu’s entire failed policy came under accusation.

Biden’s first steps after October 7, when he explicitly endorsed Netanyahu, proved indigestible to much of the Democrats. Those who took to the streets to protest a military operation that was considered genocide, just as those who provoked debate about the role of the U.S. government in universities, in newspapers, on television. This was followed by protest letters from federal officials, including State Department employees, who refused to sign documents related to U.S. support for Israel. The protest that has spread to a dozen European countries in recent weeks, all of which have been criticized from within for their governments’ stance during these four months.

At the same time, South Africa filed a genocide complaint in the International Court of Justice in The Hague against the government of Israel. The court ordered Israel to take measures to prevent genocide. The decision was hailed in triumph not only by the South African government but also by many American Democrats.

Biden’s warnings in recent weeks and the repeated dispatches of White House emissaries to Tel Aviv to mollify Netanyahu seem too late for the consciences of many in the face of shocking images of thousands of children maimed, burned, or killed in Israeli military raids.

In this context, a leading Democratic Party figure like Nancy Pelosi, speaker of Congress until last autumn, chose to side with Netanyahu: it is not the planners of the destruction of Gaza and the civilians who lived there who should be held accountable, but those who protested against Israel.

Pelosi explicitly invokes the FBI’s intervention because she believes “Putin’s message” and “ties to Russia” are behind the cease-fire requests. A conditioned reflex that does not lead to prudence and which represents a simplistic approach by Democrats, not just Americans, to interpreting everything undesirable that happens in the world.

Even the analysis of a multi-carat Democrat like Obama, who back in November deemed “intolerable” the fate imposed on the Palestinians, cannot blunt the calling of Democrats like Biden and Pelosi. Against this lady, a historically liberal newspaper such as the New York Times did not hesitate to touch the insult: “Pelosi’s Foolishness on Gaza Protesters – There’s zero evidence that Russia is behind the outcry against Israel’s actions,” the title and subtitle of the editorial are signed by Serge Schmemann.