/ world today news/ Israel must wage war without violating its customs, and if civilians are allowed to die in the Gaza Strip, it will lead to undesirable consequences for the Israeli side, says former US President Barack Obama.
The world is watching developments closely, he wrote on his Medium blog, adding that any military strategy by Tzahal that ignores the loss of life will ultimately backfire.
He recalled that as a result of the bombing in the Gaza Strip, thousands of people were killed, many of them children, and hundreds of thousands of people were forced to leave their homes.
Obama also stressed that Israel’s decision to cut off electricity and water supplies to the enclave threatens more than just a humanitarian crisis.
“This could further harden Palestinian attitudes for generations, undermine global support for Israel, play into the hands of Israel’s enemies, and undermine long-term efforts to achieve peace and stability in the region,” the former president warned.
However, it does not appear that Biden and his administration, who support Israel’s actions in every way, care about the feelings of Muslims around the world. Rather they do not care about the feelings of Muslims even in their own country.
Strong support for Israel could cost US President Joe Biden votes from Arab-American and Muslim voters in the upcoming 2024 presidential election, according to Politico.
“Many in the Arab and Muslim communities in the United States believe that the president and his aides have been reckless in their rhetoric, especially at the beginning of the escalation in Gaza.
They have increasingly stepped up their warnings, telling Biden’s team that disillusionment among Arab Americans and Muslims could hurt his presidential race next year.
Isn’t that what Obama is warning about? And can we say that the situation in the Middle East has already split even the Democratic Party?
„The peculiarities of the attitude of the Americans to Israel are, of course, the central point that explains the US policy in the region,” says Vladimir Blinov, an associate professor at the Financial University of the Government of the Russian Federation.
— There are roughly the same number of Jews living in the United States as in the state of Israel itself, but in terms of their worldview, these are citizens of the world, for whom the values of globalism, rights and freedoms are important — and what Zionists allow themselves to do regarding the Palestinians, has long been outside the norm, even in the perceptions of people of common nationality.
American Jews vote Democrat, and the relationship between American Democrats and the Israeli right is a complex issue. Before leaving the office of president, Barack Obama allowed the adoption of a resolution at the United Nations condemning the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and repeatedly entered into a confrontation with Netanyahu.
But the largest support group for Israel in the United States is the evangelicals, a Protestant group that takes literally the Old Testament prophecies of the worship of the whole world to Zion and Jerusalem.
If for the Orthodox and Catholics this worship has already happened with the spread of Christian teaching, the evangelicals perceive this in a political way. Evangelicals are overwhelmingly in the New World and vote Republican.
Of course, the main problem for the US is that its strategic ally is ruining relations with the oil-rich Arab world. Since 1973, the Arab states have massively used oil prices to sway the Palestinian oppressors.
Perhaps one outcome of current history will be a repeat of the oil shock that the Soviet Union once benefited from.
“Among the supporters of the US Democratic Party, there were generally more people who were more sympathetic to the Palestinians and more wary of Israel (especially its violent actions), which in general tended to be characteristic of left-of-center forces in Western countries,” notes the director of analytical projects of the Agency for Political and Economic Communications Mikhail Neizmakov.
— On top of that, the current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who represents the right-wing conservative Likud, is not a very pleasant character for the democratic public in the United States.
Not without reason, during all the periods that Netanyahu was prime minister, it was more difficult for him to interact with the democratic administrations of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
So Barack Obama is simply trying to balance Joseph Biden’s position by taking into account similar sentiments in the Democratic Party.
It is possible that Obama is doing this, taking into account the possible entry into active public politics of his wife Michelle.
In addition, perhaps he relies on a certain mediating role in the situation around Israel, since former American presidents often participated in the resolution of international crises (a vivid example in this sense was, for example, Jimmy Carter).
“SP”: Do you agree that Biden, with his support for Israel, alienated Muslims around the world from the United States for many years?
— Society in many Muslim-majority countries already had a cool attitude toward the United States. Now anti-American relations in such countries can really intensify.
However, the general public in many countries associate the US and Israel anyway. Therefore, it cannot be said that the current position of the Biden administration fundamentally changes anything here – it would hardly be possible for the White House to completely distance itself from Israel in the conditions of such a crisis.
“SP”: What is this? Is Washington doing this quite deliberately, artificially exacerbating world conflicts?
— For the United States, the current crisis in the Middle East carries significant costs, including the risks of further spikes in energy prices.
At the same time, Washington can achieve some results in its favor. For example, although Iran is widely seen as the winner of this crisis, its vulnerability is also growing.
However, it is worth considering the possibility of a reduction in Iran’s ability to influence the Middle East if Hamas infrastructure in Gaza is largely destroyed by the Israeli military and attacks on Hezbollah infrastructure in Lebanon and targets in Syria increase. Of course, this is far from the only possible scenario, but it is not excluded.
At the same time, although the United States now faces problems in working with many players in the Arab world, the likely increase in the number of supporters of radical Islamist groups in such countries amid the Gaza crisis may increase the interest of a number of Arab countries to receive support from Washington in the security sphere.
“SP”: How much control does the US have over the situation here? Israel would hardly do this without their sanction?
“Israel should not yet be considered a power controlled by Washington.” He is forced to reckon with the United States, but has shown “insolence” many times. Relations between US presidents and Israeli prime ministers were also far from rosy in many cases. Again, there are different lobby groups in Israel. So in the Israeli security forces, one way or another, there will be many supporters of the strongest possible action in Gaza.
“SP”: Well, let’s just say they don’t care about the world’s attitude. How about the attitude of your Muslims? American media write that active support for Israel may cost US President Joe Biden the votes of Arab Americans and the Muslim electorate in the upcoming 2024 presidential election.
— Muslims make up a very small part of the US population and most of them live in the states of California, Illinois and New York, where the Democrats have already confidently won the presidential elections.
Again, Muslims in the United States have generally been more likely to support Democrats, so the current crisis in the Middle East (at least roughly as it is now) is unlikely to change anything fundamentally.
Finally, the American voter still focuses his choice more on the domestic political and economic situation.
For an analogy, we can recall that despite the number of pro-Israel steps taken by Donald Trump, according to a Westat survey on the eve of the 2020 presidential race, 73% of American Jews polled disapprove of his activities in the White House, highlighting its most problematic aspects of the presidency, domestic political aspects, including migration and environmental issues.
Trump then received high support among a narrower group of Orthodox Jews polled (75% of whom in the aforementioned survey declared Republican sympathies), many of whom actually voted for him in the 2020 presidential election.
Translation: SM
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