A collection of opinionated commentaries on culture, politics and religion compiled predominantly from an American viewpoint but tempered by a global vision. My Armwood Opinion Youtube Channel @ YouTube I have a Jazz Blog @ Jazz
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“The images of hostages and prisoners being reunited with their families are almost too hopeful to absorb. Even as Israeli authorities explicitly try to suppress Palestinian “expressions of joy” at the return of their prisoners, the fact that they were released, and that some Israeli hostages are now safe and reunited, signals some small promise. But even if the wildest hope is realised – a lasting ceasefire – what has already unfolded over the past 52 days will be hard to forget.
There is a short video, posted on social media a few weeks ago, that I cannot get out of my head. In the clip, a man in Gaza is holding two plastic bags that carry the body parts of a child, presumably his. There are other details. The look on the man’s face. The way those around him avoid eye contact once they realise what he is carrying. I see these details often now, sudden and unbidden. The emotional and psychological impact of the war on those outside Gaza – no matter how intense – is a sort of privilege, happening, as it is, only on our screens. But there is something lasting about these images. Others I know are haunted too, by different visions. By the doctor who came across her husband’s body while treating bombing victims. By the father stroking and rocking a dust-covered baby on his chest one last time.
In the course of everyday life and in my social media feeds, I see people who say they feel they are going mad. That there are things they will never unsee. That they can’t sleep, that their interactions with the children in their lives have become tinged with a sort of queasy guilt.The feeling seems to be not just grief, but bewilderment at the fact that it has all carried on for so long. But they keep watching. To stop looking is to admit that you are helpless. It means you have resigned yourself to the fact that there is nothing you can do, and that you will eventually succumb to that enemy of justice – a fatigue that seems already to be setting in.
The truth, too hard to accept, is that there is nothing you can do. You can write to your MP, you can march, you can protest. And the killing continues. As that happens, a jarringly bloodless account of the conflict is given by political leaders in countries like the US and UK, one that seems to omit the sheer fact and number of the deaths and resorts instead to an almost surreal language that calls for “every possible precaution” to protect civilian life. UN officials, not known for intemperance, now lose their cool and use the strongest terms possible, in what seems to be a direct result of this weird insistence on not calling reality what it is. The day before the truce, Gaza authorities put the death toll at 14,532.
That’s where the sense of losing your mind comes from: the fact that it seems, for the first time that I can think of, western powers are unable to credibly pretend that there is some global system of rules that they uphold. They seem to simply say: there are exceptions, and that’s just the way it is. No, it can’t be explained and yes, it will carry on until it doesn’t at some point, which seems to be when Israeli authorities feel like it.
Part of that inability to reach for convincing narratives about why so many innocent people must die is that events escalated so quickly. There was no time to set the pace of the attacks on Gaza, prepare justifications and hope that eventually, when it was all over, time and short attention spans would cover up the toll. Gaza has been a uniquely, inconveniently, intense conflict. “Experts say that the pace of death during Israel’s campaign has few precedents in this century,” the New York Times says. A military expert commented it was like nothing he’d seen in his career. The area is so densely populated that the toll of civilians is too high, and evidence for having undermined Hamas’s capabilities, the only possible justification for the casualties, is too low.
And so the past few weeks have been a speeded-up lesson in the illusory nature of international law. Unlike Iraq, it has not taken years for the bodies to pile up, for the evidence to mount and to prove that the venture made no one safer, was merciless and misguided – and ultimately for confidence and trust in political leadership to leach away. Gaza is happening in real time, in some instances livestreamed. The bombardments are so relentless and concentrated that entire families have been wiped out. Thousands have been displaced, dragging their children in makeshift sleds (another harrowing scene). There is also the moral force of the children. Not just their deaths, estimated at up to 6,000 in less than two months, but their orphaning, displacement, and deprivation of food and water in a besieged Gaza that is now, according to Unicef, “the most dangerous place in the world to be a child”.
Humans can be taught to accept an awful lot that does not make sense, but there is a limit to what people can be plausibly told is not possible. Much of consent in politics is secured by popular agreement that there are things that are simply above the average citizen’s pay grade, and even beyond government control. Not being able to persuade “the only democracy in the Middle East” of something that seems plainly obvious, that the horrific events of 7 October cannot be erased by even more horror, is not one of them. The lesson is brutal and short: human rights are not universal and international law is arbitrarily applied.
I don’t know where that revelation goes, once it arrives. One thing I can say with more certainty is that people have seen too much that will stay with them for a long time. Whatever happens with the fragile truce that has released a thin ray of light, a darkness has also been released into the world. Its final form is yet to take shape, but take shape it will.”
(Washington Post staff illustration; photos by iStock)
“The medical sensation of the decade is a set of drugs that help people slim down. With weekly injections, people can drop 15 percent to more than 22 percent of their body weight on average, often 40, 50 pounds — or more. No safe medicine or any other weight-loss strategy except surgery has been so effective. Given that nearly 42 percent of Americans are obese, and thus vulnerable to diabetes, heart disease, stroke and various kinds of cancer, Wegovy, Zepbound and other so-called GLP-1 agonists come as a breakthrough. They offer a way to vastly improve public health — not to mention quality of life among people who struggle to lose weight.
Surely, health insurers, including employers and Medicare, can find a way to pay for these extraordinary drugs. If they don’t, only wealthy people will benefit — while poorer Americans are more prone to obesity. And the opportunity to bring a large share of the population back to good health will be largely lost.
Doing this without drastically inflating the price of U.S. health care and straining public budgets will be hard. The monthly cost for the drugs is upward of $1,000. (Zepbound is $1,060 and Wegovy $1,350.) If Medicare’s drug-coverage program, Part D, were to cover Wegovy at the list price for all obese beneficiaries, it would cost more than the entire Part D budget — and more than the total amount of excess health-care spending on obese Americans of all ages (estimated to be $260 billion in 2016), according to an analysis in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Also on the Editorial Board’s agenda
Part D pays for the drugs only to treat diabetes. The law bars the program from covering weight-loss medications, but Congress could easily remove this obstacle — put in place at a time when overweight status was stigmatized as a personal failing, rather than reflective of deep-seated biological drives, and weight loss was considered only a cosmetic benefit.
The drugs stand to be alarmingly expensive for private insurers, too. If more than a tiny fraction of the people they cover use the drugs, the cost will drive up premiumsfor everyone. The injections are meant to be taken in perpetuity — people who quit see much of the weight return — which could translate into an enormous addition to America’s already world-beating health-care costs. Yet more and more employers are covering them, as most Americans want them to do.
Limiting demand would be a daunting challenge because almost half the U.S. population meets the Food and Drug Administration criteria for taking them: They have either a body mass index of at least 30 (obesity) or a BMI of 27 (overweight) and at least one weight-related ailment (diabetes, high blood pressure or high cholesterol, for example). Not everyone who qualifies will want the drugs, of course, and many who start taking them will quit. A recent study found that 68 percent of patients stop within a year of starting — presumably, this is at least in part because of unpleasant gastrointestinal side effects. But demand is already so high, the drugmakers are having trouble keeping up.
This demand also keeps prices aloft. The medicines are priced at least 40 percent higher than what would be cost-effective, considering their benefits, according to the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, a research organization. But the list prices aren’t immutable; they’re subject to negotiation. Private insurers strike deals with drugmakers to pay significantly less. And prices will fall as similar new drugs hit the market — and, in years ahead, as generic versions of the drugs emerge. Note that Zepbound, which the FDA approved for weight loss this month, is cheaper than Wegovy, approved in 2021, even though studies suggest Zepbound may work a bit better.
Insurers can lower their prices by buying the medicines in bulk, guaranteeing drugmakers large markets. This strategy could also work for state Medicaid programs, only a limited number of which now pay for the drugs.
For Medicare specifically, Congress needs to grant Part D the authority to not only cover the medicines but also include them among the medicines for which the program can negotiate prices.
Even as prices fall, the federal government has a responsibility to support broader studies of the drugs’ long-term safety. It must also keep up other efforts to address obesity — including by discouraging ultra-processed food and by encouraging greater physical activity (for example, by improving school lunches, food package labeling, and public spaces and pathways for exercise). The weight-loss drugs are not miracle cures. Many people cannot or do not want to tolerate them, and even patients who shed many pounds often remain obese or overweight. The medicines are one weapon in the obesity fight — but one that, if broadly used, may be powerful enough to make a big difference.“
“Almost all the polling shows the same pattern. Could the coming campaign restore Democrats’ usual advantage?
You’re reading The Tilt newsletter, for Times subscribers only. Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, makes sense of the latest political data.
A solid youth vote edge could be in doubt for Democrats in 2024. Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York Times
Could President Biden and Donald J. Trump really be locked in a close race among young voters — a group Democrats typically carry by double digits — as the recent Times/Siena polls suggest?
To many of our readers and others, it’s a little hard to believe — so hard to believe that it seems to them the polls are flat-out wrong.
Of course, it’s always possible that the polls are wrong. I’ve thought our own polling might be wrong before, and I would be very apprehensive if it were just our poll out on a limb. But this isn’t about one Times/Siena poll: Virtually every poll shows a close race between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump among young voters.
When dozens of polls all say the same thing, it’s worth taking the polling seriously. It’s easy to remember that the polling can be wrong, but it can be easy to forget that the polling is usually in the ballpark. It’s a losing game to dismiss all polling simply because it doesn’t comport with expectations.
Now, that doesn’t mean I don’t sympathize with those who question whether the final election results will look like recent polls. Personally, I’m skeptical the final results will look quite like these polls. But even if you think the final results will be very different, it does not mean that the polls are “wrong” today.
In fact, the belief that Mr. Biden will ultimately win young voters handily next year does nothing to distinguish two very different explanations for what we see in the polling:
The polls are mostly wrong. They’re biased. For whatever reason, they fail to reach the Democratic-leaning young voters who propelled Mr. Biden to victory in 2020.
The polls are mostly right. They’re reaching the young voters who backed Mr. Biden. But for now, these voters don’t support him. Over the next year, things could change.
When it comes to the Times/Siena poll, we’ve put forward a lot of evidence consistent with the theory that the polling is mostly right, but that things might change.
By the measures at our disposal, the voters 18 to 29 in our survey “look” right. They say they backed Mr. Biden over Mr. Trump in the last presidential election by a wide margin, 57-35, right in line with our expectations. They “look” right by other measures of partisanship as well. In the states with party registration, for instance, the Times/Siena young voters were registered Democrats by a 13-point margin, 35 percent to 22 percent. That’s almost exactly in line with their actual 13-point registration advantage, 36 percent to 23 percent.
It’s important to emphasize that just because the polls “look” right doesn’t mean they are right. Our polls looked “right” by these kind of indicators in 2020. They were still wrong in important ways (though they were right about plenty as well, including racial and generational depolarization). But these data points nonetheless raise the burden on those who assert that the issue is partisan nonresponse bias, in which young Democrats simply aren’t answering their cellphones (99.8 percent of our young respondents were reached by cellphone).
We see no evidence of that. In our polling, the problem for Mr. Biden isn’t too few young Democrats. It’s that many young Democrats don’t like him. Mr. Biden has just a 76-20 lead among young voters either registered as Democrats or who have previously voted in a Democratic primary. It’s just a 69-24 lead among young nonwhite Democrats. The dissent exists among self-identified Democrats, Democratic-leaners, Biden ’20 voters, and so on.
This kind of intraparty dissent is rare but not without precedent in our polling. I’ve seen it in our congressional polls of highly educated suburbs full of Romney-Clinton voters. And I’ve seen it once before in a statewide presidential race: our finalpolls in 2016, when Mr. Trump suddenly surged to obtain 30 percent of white working-class registered Democrats. It was hard to believe, but it was fairly easy to explain and it raised the serious possibility of a Trump win.
Similarly, I think it’s fairly straightforward to explain Mr. Biden’s weakness among young voters today, much as it was easy to explain Mrs. Clinton’s among white working-class voters in 2016. Young voters are by far the likeliest to say he’s just too old to be an effective president. Many are upset about his handling of the Israel-Hamas war. And all of this is against the backdrop of Mr. Biden’s longstanding weakness among young voters, who weren’t enthusiastic about him in 2020, and Mr. Trump’s gains among nonwhite voters, who are disproportionately young.
But even if you don’t buy these explanations, that’s mostly just a reason to believe the numbers will shift over the next year, not a reason to dismiss the polling.
After all, these polls do not depict the usual, stable basis for vote choice that we’ve become accustomed to in our polarized country. This is not an election where almost all voters like their own party’s candidate while disliking the opposing party’s candidate and disagreeing with them on the issues. Instead, we have an unstable arrangement: Millions of voters dislike both candidates, entertain minor-party candidates and when pressed often say they would vote for someone from the other major political party whom they disagree with on many important issues. These are the textbook conditions for volatility, and it’s entirely reasonable to doubt whether the arrangement will last once the campaign gets underway.
We tried to illustrate the abstract possibility that “things can change” more concretely through an article in which we called back the Kamala-not-Joe voters— the young voters who back Vice President Kamala Harris over Mr. Trump but not Mr. Biden over Mr. Trump. It’s worth noting that these are the kinds of voters we would expect to find in the data if Mr. Biden really were performing this badly among an otherwise typical sample of young voters — much as the 2016 polling featured plenty of white working-class Trump voters who approved of Barack Obama and who said they voted for him in 2012.
There’s one other way the results might end up “normal,” even with today’s polling: a low youth turnout. Almost all of the polls nowadays are among registered voters, not likely voters, and most of Mr. Biden’s weakness is among disengaged voters on the periphery of the electorate. In the latest Times/Siena polling, Mr. Biden leads by 15 points among young voters who turned out in the midterms, while he trails by three points among young voters who didn’t turn out. If these irregular, disaffected voters simply choose not to vote, Mr. Biden will most likely have a healthy lead with young voters.
There are countless other reasons the polls today may not ultimately align with the final result. For one, Mr. Trump could be convicted of federal crimes in six months. But just because the polls aren’t necessarily “predictive” of the final outcome does not mean they’re wrong. It doesn’t mean they’re not worth taking seriously, either. For the campaigns, taking the numbers seriously today may wind up being exactly what changes the numbers tomorrow.
Nate Cohn is The Times’s chief political analyst. He covers elections, polling and demographics for The Upshot. Before joining The Times in 2013, he was a staff writer for The New Republic.More about Nate Cohn“
Burlington, Vermont, shooting live updates: Three Palestinian college students shot on their way to dinner
"The shooter didn't say a word before firing at least four times, Burlington police said Sunday.
No indication of connection to school, University of Vermont says
The University of Vermont said in a statement today that “we have no indication” that the shooting is connected to the school, cautioning that the investigation continues.
"We are saddened by reports of a shooting at approximately 6:30 pm last night on Prospect Street in Burlington near UVM, injuring three out-of-state visitors," President Suresh Garimella and Provost Patty Prelock said in the statement. "Currently, we have no indication of a connection to the university community, but the investigation is at an early stage."
The three victims were in town to visit and were not students at the university.
University police and campus safety teams are providing security in and around campus, "as is common in the wake of any significant safety incident," the university said.
"Our hearts go out to the victims and to all who are impacted by this incident. We encourage members of the UVM community to reach out for support as needed and we encourage you to support those around you," it said.
Trinity College says victim is stable
Trinity College, which one of the victims attends, said in a statement today that the community was "heartbroken."
Tahseen Ahmed, who was wounded in last night's shooting, is set to graduate from the university in 2026.
"A member of the Trinity Student Life staff went to Vermont early this morning to provide support and reports that Tahseen wants the Trinity community to know that he is in stable condition at an area hospital," President Joanne Berger-Sweeney and Joseph DiChristina, the vice president for student success and enrollment management, said in the statement.
"At this moment, please keep Tahseen and his friends in your heart."
Police presence near scene of shooting
WPTZ
Police tape and vehicles seen near the scene of the shooting in Burlington last night that wounded three Palestinian college students.
Gov. Phil Scott: Coming together is 'only way to put a stop to the violence we’re seeing'
Vermont Gov. Phil Scott called the shooting of three Palestinian students in Burlington last night "a tragedy."
“My thoughts are with them and their families,"Scott said in a statement. "I have offered the State’s full support to the Mayor and Burlington Police Chief as this senseless crime is investigated, and in support of the Palestinian and broader Burlington community."
Scott urged residents to "unite to help the community heal, and not let this incident incite more hate or divisiveness."
"We must come together in these difficult times — it is the only way to put a stop to the violence we’re seeing," he said.
Biden briefed on shooting of three Palestinian students
President Joe Biden has been briefed on the shooting of three Palestinian students in Burlington.
Biden will be updated as law enforcement gathers more information, the White House said.
CAIR offers $10,000 reward for info on the Burlington shooting
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is offering a $10,000 reward for information about the shooting in Burlington that wounded three Palestinian men.
The organization also called on state and federal law enforcement agencies in Vermont to investigate a possible bias motive for the shooting.
“Due to the unprecedented spike in anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian hate and violence we have witnessed in recent weeks, local, state and national law enforcement authorities must investigate a possible bias motive for the shooting of these three young men,” National Executive Director Nihad Awad said. “We hope our reward will result in information leading to an arrest in this case.”
Families of Burlington victims call for thorough investigation
In a joint statement they issued through the Institute for Middle East Understanding, the families said they "are devastated by the horrific news that our children were targeted and shot in Burlington, VT."
The families identified the victims as Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid and Tahseen Ahmed. Awartani is a student at Brown University, Abdalhamid is a student at Haverford College, and Ahmed is a student at Trinity College.
"At this time, our primary concern is their full recovery and that they receive the critical medical support they need to survive," the statement read. "We are extremely concerned about the safety and well-being of our children."
The families said the victims are "dedicated students who deserve to be able to focus on their studies and building their futures."
"We call on law enforcement to conduct a thorough investigation, including treating this as a hate crime. We will not be comfortable until the shooter is brought to justice. We need to ensure that our children are protected, and this heinous crime is not repeated," the statement read.
Victims were confronted by a white man with a handgun who shot 'without speaking,' Burlington police say
The Palestinian shooting victims "were confronted by a white male with a handgun" who shot at least four rounds "without speaking," Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad said in a news release.
"Preliminary investigation has determined that all three were visiting the home of one victim’s relatives in Burlington for the Thanksgiving holiday. The three were walking on Prospect Street when they were confronted by a white male with a handgun," Murad said. "The suspect was on foot in the area. Without speaking, he discharged at least four rounds from the pistol and is believed to have fled on foot."
All three victims, whom police did not name out of respect for their own wishes, were struck — two in the torso and one in the "lower extremities" — police said.
Bernie Sanders says shooting of three Palestinian men in Vermont is 'shocking and deeply upsetting'
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., called the shooting of three Palestinian men in Burlington "shocking and deeply upsetting."
"It is shocking and deeply upsetting that three young Palestinians were shot here in Burlington, VT,"Sanders wrote on X. "Hate has no place here, or anywhere. I look forward to a full investigation. My thoughts are with them and their families."
Haverford College says Burlington shooting victims are Palestinian students
Haverford College, which one of the Burlington shooting victims attends, identified all three as Palestinian.
In a note shared with the college community, President Wendy Raymond and Dean John McKnight said they learned "early this morning that a member of our community, Haverford junior Kinnan Abdalhamid, is recovering from a gunshot wound in a hospital in Burlington, VT, after he and two of his lifelong friends were shot near the University of Vermont campus by an unknown assailant(s) Saturday evening."
FBI is aware of shooting incident in Burlington
The FBI said it is aware of the incident in Burlington where three Palestinian men were shot.
“We are aware of the incident in Burlington and are working with our state and local partners in Vermont,” said a spokesperson for the FBI's field office in Albany, New York. “If, in the course of the local investigation, information comes to light of a potential federal violation, the FBI is prepared to investigate.”
Burlington shooting victims were wearing keffiyehs and speaking Arabic when shot, advocacy organization says
The three shooting victims were wearing keffiyehs and speaking Arabic when a man harassed and shot them, according to the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee.
A keffiyeh is a traditional scarf worn by people in parts of the Middle East. it has become a symbol of Palestinian solidarity.
The ADC identified the victims as students, all 20 years old. They all survived, but two of them were in the intensive care unit and one "has sustained very critical and serious injuries," according to the ADC.
West Bank school says Burlington shooting victims are graduates
The Ramallah Friends School in the West Bank identified the Burlington shooting victims as graduates from the school.
"Ramallah Friends School board, administration, staff and community are deeply distressed by the recent incident involving three of our graduates," the school wrote onFacebook.
According to the school, one was shot in the back and another was shot in the chest. NBC News has not independently confirmed this information.
"We stand united in hope and support for their well-being during this challenging time. Please hold our graduates and their families in the light," the school wrote.
Three Palestinian men shot in Vermont on their way to a family dinner, official says
Three Palestinian men were shot in Burlington, Vermont, last night while on their way to a family dinner,according to Husam Zomlot, the head of the Palestinian Mission to the U.K.
"Their crime? Wearing the Palestinian keffiyeh," Zomlot wrote on his X account. "They are critically injured."
Zomlot referenced the murder of 6-year-oldWadea Al-Fayoume, who was fatally stabbed by his landlord about six weeks ago in Illinois.
"The hate crimes against Palestinians must stop. Palestinians everywhere need protection," he wrote."
A display near the White House calls on President Biden to exert pressure on Israel to stop the war. (Andrew Harnik/Associated Press)
Earlier this month, a group of about 20 distressed White House staffers requested a meeting with President Biden’s top advisers, as Israel’s war in Gaza entered its sixth week.
The diverse group of staffers had three main issues they wanted to discuss with White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients, senior adviser Anita Dunn and deputy national security adviser Jon Finer: They wanted to know the administration’s strategy for curbing the number of civilian deaths, the message it plans to send on the conflict and its postwar vision for the region.
Zients, Dunn and Finer listened respectfully, but some participants felt they fell back on familiar talking points, said a White House official familiar with the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private exchange. The administration had to be careful not to criticize Israel in public so it could influence its leaders in private, the advisers said. U.S. officials were pushing Israel to minimize civilian casualties. And the president and his top aides were advocating for a two-state solution once the conflict was over.
The previously unreported meeting of officials underscores how Biden’s handling of what is arguably the biggest foreign policy crisis of his presidency is dividing a White House that has prided itself on running a disciplined and united operation. The Israel-Gaza war has roiled the administration more than any other issue in Biden’s first three years in office, according to numerous aides and allies inside and outside the White House, as staffers agonize over their positions on highly emotional issues.
Adding to the sensitivity, the unwavering embrace of Israel that many staffers find upsetting stems in large part from Biden’s personal lifelong attachment to the Jewish state, aides said. Biden often cites his 1973 meeting with iconic Prime Minister Golda Meir as a seminal event that crystallized his view of Israel as critical for Jewish survival.
At the time, Israel was 25 years old, a left-leaning nation and a military underdog, struggling to find its way in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Now Israel is a military powerhouse led by a far-right coalition, and the Biden administration has become identified with a military campaign that has killed more than 14,000 Palestinians, displaced hundreds of thousands of others, created a humanitarian disaster and damaged America’s moral authority in much of the world.
Yet there are limits to how much the United States has been able to influence Israel’s actions as it largely refrains from criticizing them publicly. “I think the administration has realized from quite early on that it was in a bind,” said Ivo Daalder, chief executive of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs who served as NATO ambassador under President Barack Obama.
“And it was in a bind not only because of Biden’s own predilection, which is real and strong and important,” Daalder said, but because of the political costs of breaking with Israel, especially after the bloody Hamas attack on Oct. 7 that killed more than 1,200 people and resulted in over 200 hostages taken.
This account of how the administration has handled the Israel-Gaza war is based on interviews with 27 White House officials, senior administration officials and outside advisers, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly to reveal internal conversations.
White House officials contend that Biden’s “bear hug” approach to Israel has given him credibility with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, allowing the president to exert the kind of pressure that led to the current hostage deal and fighting pause. U.S. officials are now using the pause to urge Israel to make its expected military operation in the south of Gaza, where nearly 2 million Palestinians are concentrated, more targeted and less deadly, according to two senior administration officials.
Biden’s foreign policy team has long been mindful of the influence of Washington’s pro-Israel lobbying organizations. But the changing demographics of key swing states, such as Michigan, home to a growing Arab American community, is prompting some Democratic analysts to question the conventional political wisdom.
Progressives such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have urged Biden to make America’s $3.8 billion in annual aid to Israel conditional on an end to the widespread bombing of Gaza and a freeze on West Bank settlements. Biden said Friday that was a “worthwhile thought,” but that if he had done it too quickly it would have hurt his leverage with Israel, adding, “I don’t think if I started off with that we ever would have gotten to where we are today."
The division inside the White House is to some degree between Biden’s senior longtime aides and an array of younger staffers of diverse backgrounds. But even top advisers said they recognize the conflict has hurt America’s global standing. “We’re taking on a lot of water on Israel’s behalf,” one senior official said. Still, Biden’s aides noted that his public statements have become increasingly direct on the responsibility Israel has to minimize civilian casualties and to allow aid into Gaza, even as he declines to call for a cease-fire as many liberals want.
The White House also insists it has influenced Israel’s military tactics, pointing out that more than 100 aid trucks a day on average are getting into Gaza and that Israel is now allowing in some fuel. One senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss secret diplomacy, said that after the United States dispatched three senior military officers in late October to advise the Israelis on strategy, they sent only about a third as many troops into Gaza as they had initially planned.
“Following the deadliest attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust, President Biden remains focused on helping Israel defend itself against the imminent threat posed by Hamas,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement, citing Biden’s efforts to secure the release of hostages and the transit of aid into Gaza. “The president, his senior staff and his entire team are committed to supporting and listening to the communities who are experiencing pain because of the events since October 7, both inside the administration and throughout the country.”
Some experts said Biden would have more room to maneuver if he had moderated his support for Israel at the outset last months. “If at the beginning of the conflict we had a more nuanced approach to this, the administration could have distanced itself in a way that would be safer for it diplomatically and politically,” said Steven Cook, senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. “The no-daylight strategy is causing a lot of problems for them.”
Biden at times has seemed to wrestle with his own emotions regarding the war. On Oct. 25, he voiced skepticism about the Gaza death toll provided by the Ministry of Health, which is controlled by Hamas. “I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed,” he said.
The following day, Biden met with five prominent Muslim Americans, who protested what they saw as his insensitivity to the civilians who were dying. All spoke of people they knew who had been affected by the suffering in Gaza, including a woman who had lost 100 members of her family.
Biden appeared to be affected by their account. “I’m sorry. I’m disappointed in myself,” he told the group, according to two people familiar with the meeting. “I will do better.” The meeting, scheduled for 30 minutes, ended up lasting more than an hour, according to one White House official, and ended with Biden hugging one of the participants.
Many in the White House have been aware since the outset of the political peril that the conflict poses for Biden. Since the Hamas launched its attack on Oct. 7, administration officialshave held regular discussions with staffers, political appointees and outside groups to reassure them and to gauge their reaction.
On Oct. 7, many in the White House responded viscerally to the brutal nature of the atrocities. Zients emailed staffers expressing empathy with Jewish staffers and those with personal ties to Israel. Many Jewish staffers appreciated the note, but some Arab and Muslim officials felt it was tone-deaf to their concerns, given that Israeli officials were vowing to carry out a scorched-earth campaign in Gaza.
Muslim appointees in the administration began raising “alarm bells” about the email from Zients and what they believed was one-sided rhetoric by the administration, a senior administration official familiar with the efforts said. Shortly after Oct. 7, Zients directed staff to conduct a “robust” internal and external outreach strategy to Jewish, Muslim, Arab and Palestinian American communities. And Dunn, Biden’s top political strategist, has led a daily meeting with about 30 White House staffers responsible for outreach to various communities, according to two senior administration officials.
Both Zients and Dunn have conducted regular meetings and listening sessions with staffers, including those who disagree with the president’s response. After a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy was fatally stabbed last month, Zients wrote in an Oct. 17 email: “I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge how difficult it has been for our Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim American colleagues — in addition to our Jewish colleagues.”
As Biden prepared a major Oct. 10 address, one that many Jewish groups would praise as one of the most pro-Israel speeches by a sitting American president, Vice President Harris suggested that he add a line denouncing Islamophobia, according to two White House officials familiar with the planning.
Harris cited the way Islamophobia had dogged the Muslim and Arab communities for years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Biden took the suggestion. But he rejected others, for instance dismissing the recommendation of some staffers that he cut a line about Hamas beheading babies because those reports were unverified.
Biden has received praise from numerous Jewish groups for his empathy since the Oct. 7 attacks, saying he has shown a sensitivity to antisemitism and the Jewish people’s long history of facing persecution. “It has brought to the surface painful memories and scars left by a millennia of antisemitism and the genocide of the Jewish people,” Biden said during a whirlwind trip to Tel Aviv on Oct. 18.
Two Jewish administration officials said there was widespread support internally for Biden’s response and his efforts to address antisemitism. “Antisemitic language and tactics by the far left are making Jewish staffers nervous to speak out and say they are happy with how the response is going,” one of the officials said.
But White House officials have also heard from myriad progressive groups and religious leaders, including some Jewish activists and Black church leaders, who have voiced their concern about the humanitarian situation in Gaza and urged the administration to call for a cease-fire.
One meeting between White House aides and about a dozen Palestinian Americans turned contentious when participants warned that Biden would lose Arab and Muslim voters over his handling of the war. An aide explained that Biden was not thinking about the issue in political terms and instead was trying to prevent World War III, according to one person familiar with the meeting.
One of the Palestinian Americans in the meeting said the participants left with more resolve to organize their communities not to vote for Biden in the 2024 election. The person said Arabs and Muslims would also not vote for former president Donald Trump, who has called for banning travel to the United States from Muslim-majority countries, but could sit out the race.
Inside the administration, a growing number of American diplomats, defense officials and aid workers have called for a cease-fire, including more than 1,000 staffers at the U.S. Agency for International Development. At the State Department, there have been multiple dissent cables from diplomats urging the administration to use more leverage to stop the violence.
One Arab staffer said they felt “empowered” by the level of outreach the White House has conducted. Yet a range of Muslim Americans across the administration have formed group chats to air their disappointment. Many have faced pressure from family and friends to resign in protest, and while most have decided to stay, some said they have lost faith they could influence the administration’s position. “I don’t have any optimism at this point that anything is changing in terms of the policy,” one Muslim staffer said.
Some in Biden’s circle worry that he does not distinguish between an idealistic image of the state of Israel and the reality of the Netanyahu government, which includes several representatives from the far right. “The president’s personal historical commitment to Israel was not modulated by the reality that this Israel happens to have a government that is the worst government it’s ever had,” an ally of the administration said. “Biden has underestimated the degree to which you have to separate how Israel reacts to this and how a Netanyahu government reacts to this.”
U.S. officials view Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich as particularly troubling influences who make it harder for Netanyahu to rein in extremist elements in Israeli society. “He’s always looking over his shoulder at the political ramifications of everything,” one U.S. official said of Netanyahu. “So at the time when you need someone to make the right decisions on letting fuel go in so people have water, or reining in West Bank settler violence, he keeps looking over his shoulder at the far-right voices in his cabinet who could balk and collapse his government.”
The first five days after the Hamas attacks were especially troubling, one senior administration official recalled, as Israeli officials were consumed by rage and grief, convinced Hezbollah and Iran were behind the atrocities. U.S. officials helped deter Israel from launching an attack on the Lebanon-based Hezbollah, which could have opened another front in the war.
Biden decided to travel to Tel Aviv on Oct. 18 in part to calm the Israelis and to buy time before they launched their ground invasion of Gaza. At a meeting with Netanyahu’s war cabinet, the president was blunt about their strategy. “I completely disagree with that policy,” Biden said of Israel at first refusing to allow aid into Gaza, according to a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy. The president said the United States could not support a comprehensive siege of Gaza in which Israel cut off access to food, fuel, water and electricity.
For much of his presidency, Biden did not prioritize the Israeli-Palestinian issue in his foreign policy, spending far more time on issues such as China and the Russia-Ukraine war. He spent years watching American presidents try and fail to bring comprehensive peace to the region, and concluded that such efforts would fail unless the Israelis and Palestinians had leaders who were deeply committed to the process. That meant that when the attacks erupted, the United States did not have a significant engagement in Israeli-Palestinian dialogue.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has borne the brunt of Arab outrage at the enormous civilian death toll in Gaza as he has traveled to the Middle East twice in the past month, and he has used stronger rhetoric than the president in demanding more restraint. “Far too many Palestinians have been killed. Far too many have suffered these past weeks,” Blinken said on Nov. 10. “There is more that can and should be done to minimize harm to Palestinian civilians.”
The central dispute between Biden and Netanyahu is not over a cease-fire, which neither supports, but over the view in Washington that Israel has an unacceptable standard for proportionality. In its effort to eliminate Hamas, Israel is using powerful bombs, leveling neighborhoods and taking down high-rise buildings, tactics that inevitably kill large numbers of civilians and, many argue, further radicalize the Palestinian population.
U.S. officials said Biden has taken a more confrontational approach to Israel in public and in private in recent weeks, even if it is not always obvious to the public. “Biden has banged Bibi really hard on settler violence and civilian casualties in private,” one official said. Biden has told reporters that the “humanitarian pauses” by Israel in its bombing campaign should have happened sooner and gone on longer. In an opinion piece for The Washington Post, Biden said the United States is prepared to issue visa bans against Israeli settler “extremists” who have attacked Palestinian civilians in the West Bank.
Many senior officials fear Israel will not show restraint as it moves its operation to the south of Gaza and worry the longer the conflict goes on, the more harmful it will be for Biden politically and diplomatically. While Israeli officials have said the conflict could last a year or longer, U.S. officials remain hopeful that the conflict will not stretch into the heart of the 2024 campaign, because of the speed of the Israeli incursion and an assessment that it does not have the resources to sustain an operation for that long.
Still, Biden officials are in an increasingly vexing predicament. “The problem they have, which is the problem they’ve had from day one, is the Israelis” don’t have “a strategy for doing what they want to do that does not harm, kill and expel a lot of Palestinians from Gaza,” one outside adviser said. “They have to go down south and do the same thing. I don’t know how you do that with 2-plus million people in the south.”
