MOSHE HILL OPINION COLUMNS MARCH 06 2024
For months, Israel supporters have looked at the Biden administration’s tentative support for Israel with hope that the president would not cave to his extremist leftist base like he has on nearly every other issue. The idea was that if the Jewish community thanked Joe Biden enough, it would be appreciated. That hope was premature, because nothing matters more to Biden than the electoral math that will decide his fate in November.
There are currently seven states that are considered “battlegrounds” for Biden’s upcoming presidential election against President Donald Trump: Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and, of course, Michigan. Michigan is the home of a large Muslim community, especially Dearborn, which could decide the state and the country. Trump won Michigan in 2016, but Biden won it in 2020. A February opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal referred to Dearborn as America’s “Jihad Capital,” citing decades of support for terrorist activity centered there.
Compare that to the centers of Jewish life in America. Major communities exist in New York, New Jersey, Florida, California, Maryland, and Illinois. None of those states are swing states. The pro-Israel Jewish communities in those states have no bearing on the presidential election because the states they live in have already been decided on. Even the recent poll showing that the majority of Jewish voters in New York preferring Trump over Biden is little more than a talking point. Biden could nuke Flatbush; he would still receive 60% of the vote here.
Ironically, in 2016, Trump was accused of caving to extremists who were supposed supporters of him. Interchangeably referred to as the “alt-right” and “white supremacists,” this shadowy cabal of supporters never had a coherent movement or any government power. It was a media fantasy that there was a dearth of voters supporting Trump because he would forward their extremist desires. This never materialized and never made sense.
Now, however, we know exactly who is leading the charge, where they are leading it, and what they hope to accomplish. Rashida Tlaib, who represents Dearborn in the House of Representatives, made a massive push for Michigan residents to vote “uncommitted” in the Democratic primary last week (as opposed to voting for Joe Biden.) The gambit paid off, with over 100,000 “uncommitted” votes being tallied.
In the Real Clear Politics polling average, Trump is leading Biden by 3.6 points. Compare this with four years ago, where Biden was leading Trump by 4.7 points (winning the state), and eight years ago, when Hillary Clinton was leading Trump by 6.5 points and ended up losing the state. Trump leading in Michigan and potentially earning those 15 electoral votes is scaring the living daylights out of the Democrats.
So the White House sent out their favorite patsy, Vice President Kamala Harris, to test the waters of what it would look like to completely cave to the radicals in their base. Speaking at an event in Selma, Alabama, commemorating the 59th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday, Harris laid into Israel, fully throwing America’s greatest ally in the Middle East under the bus. She pushed the debunked claim that Israel caused the death of 100 Palestinians at the aid trucks last week. She blamed Israel for not allowing more aid to get through, without mentioning that the aid is there – there is just no one in Gaza to disseminate it. She also called for “an immediate ceasefire for at least the next six weeks.”
That’s not all. First Lady Jill Biden will be skipping Israel on a planned trip to the Middle East this coming May, according to Newsmax. Jill will be traveling to Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco “to strengthen the United States’ partnerships and advance our shared priorities in the region” and “focus on the empowerment of youth around the world,” according to the itinerary, but not showing support for Israel in its time of war. Normally, the travel plans of the First Lady would be of little consequence, but Jill Biden is no normal First Lady. Given the President’s obvious cognitive decline, it is heavily speculated that she is making many decisions in the White House, like Edith Wilson did with Woodrow Wilson.
California Representative Ro Khanna got in on the action, claiming on CBS’s Face the Nation that Biden needs to do “something bold” to please the Hamas-supporting voters in the Democratic Party, like calling for a ceasefire or unilaterally recognizing a Palestinian state. Either of these would be capitulating to terrorists for committing the worst act of terror on the West since 9/11, but Khanna doesn’t care, because Michigan is more important.
It was always pure projection from the Democrats that Trump was caving to the mythical white supremacists and extremists that made up a large voting base. They actually flipped it around in this election cycle, claiming that the Republicans in Congress are now caving to Trump, whom they refer to as a white supremacist and extremist. None of that is true. What is true, however, is that there is a clear movement within the Democratic Party to cave to a terror organization abroad and their supporters at home for a small chance of winning one state. And Biden is more than willing to throw away an ally to get it done.
