Biden, Israel and ‘Squad’ pressure By Ruthie Blum
To justify their backing of Joe Biden, beyond their aversion to US President Donald Trump’s tweets and demeanor, liberal American Jews and left-wing Israelis have been highlighting the Democratic candidate’s lifelong support for Israel.
With most pre-election polls indicating that a blue wave was about to wash away the past four years of a Trump-led White House and Republican-dominated Senate, media outlets the world over rallied to help that happen. In Israel, the three main Israeli TV channels prepared fawning features on Biden to air on the night of November 3, while those Americans who hadn’t voted early or by mail were still in the process of lining up to perform their civic duty in person.
The thrill of Israeli members of the press and punditocracy at the near-certainty of a Trump-free universe was surpassed only by that of their counterparts in the US. That the polls turned out to be wrong about what promised to be a slam-dunk Biden victory elicited many a disappointed sigh and nervous furrow of the brow.
But the error in algorithms didn’t come as a complete surprise to anyone. Indeed, the only issue on which Left and Right seem to have reached a consensus is that polls have become about as reliable as weather reports.
From the perspective of Trump and his supporters, who still harbor hope that vote recounts and litigation will tip the Electoral College balance in their favor, the polls have been false all along, perhaps purposely so. Democrats, too, are disappointed. Even if the final tally puts Biden in the White House, it will be with a whimper, not the bang they’d anticipated – particularly as their dream of “taking back” the Senate was dashed.
Furthermore, though they retained their majority in the House of Representatives, rival Republicans managed to flip some of their seats. What all of the above means is that even if Biden ends up in the Oval Office in January, he will be in a weak position where implementing policy is concerned.
Though a sensible wager from a strategic standpoint, it was not a concession of the Sanders or Warren worldview. Nor was it a rejection of the superstar “squad” – Ayanna Pressley (D-Massachusetts), Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) – each of whom was reelected on Tuesday with much fanfare. And all have made clear that they see Biden as a puppet they put in power to carry out their agenda.
While campaigning in New Hampshire last week, Pressley told the Boston Herald that a Biden win was imperative for furthering “bold, progressive policies” required to counter the “inequities, disparities and racial injustices that have existed for a long time [but which the] pandemic has laid bare.”
A cabinet including progressives is no longer beyond the realm of possibility, she said, as “many… policies that previously might have been marginalized are now a part of the everyday discourse, and they need to be on the table.”
Pressley told the Herald that one progressive she would like to see in Biden’s cabinet is Warren.
OMAR EXPRESSED a similar sentiment in an interview with Axios on HBO on October 27, openly admitting that she expects Biden to shed his moderate cloak and move to the Left.
“A president is only as successful as his collaboration is with Congress,” she said. “And we will have a cohort of progressives that are very clear about their objectives for wanting the implementation of Medicare for all and a Green New Deal and raising the minimum wage and not allowing for fracking.”
She also made no bones about her belief that all posts in Biden’s cabinet should be filled by progressives, while issuing a not-so-veiled reminder to him that he was only selected to lead the party in order to promote and implement progressive policies.
Ocasio-Cortez, an ardent Sanders surrogate, has been just as candid about her goals. In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on October 25, she explained why she thinks it’s “critically important” for Biden to appoint progressives to his cabinet.
“This is about making sure we’re not just going back to how things were and rewinding the tape before the Trump administration, but this is about making sure how are we going to not just make up for lost time, but leap into the future and actually ensure that we are making the investments and policy decisions that will create an advanced American society. And frankly, conservative appointments will not get us there.”
By “conservative,” she meant Biden-like Democrats, of course, not Republicans.
More telling was her statement about why young people with a “very disciplined activist mindset” backed Biden.
“They are not here with the intent of voting for their favorite person or voting for, you know, someone they think is perfect as president,” she said. “They want to vote for who they are going to lobby, [someone] receptive to their advocacy, activism and protests, frankly.”
Then there’s Tlaib, who considers the Biden-Kamala Harris ticket to be a means to an end, not the ultimate aim.
In an interview with Middle East Eye on October 30, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants said, “I need an administration that I can get through the door and speak the truth about the oppression of the Palestinian people and the violence toward the Palestinian people.”
Tlaib – who, like Omar, Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders, is hostile to Israel – told the online publication that she had informed Biden of her intention to push for progressive policies “with a sense of urgency.”
Liberal Jews are foolish to support a party with radicals so proudly in its ranks, especially when the alternative is the most pro-Israel administration in US history, and a president making Mideast peace before their very eyes. At least the only Israelis rooting for Biden are themselves on the far Left. The rest are bemoaning Trump’s likely exit.
Underscoring Biden’s supposedly stellar record on Israel, too, is ridiculous. In the first place, he wants America to return to the dangerous nuclear deal with Iran.
This would jeopardize the Trump-brokered Abraham Accords that the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed with Israel; it would shake Sudan’s resolve to normalize relations with the Jewish state; and it would block several other budding agreements in the region based on a unified stance against the mullah-led regime in Tehran.
Secondly, Biden still holds with the false credo that true peace cannot be achieved without Israel relinquishing land and evicting the Jews living there, to make way for an independent Palestinian state along the 1967 borders. It’s one “pro-Israel” approach that the likes of Omar and Tlaib might grudgingly accept.
Finally, Biden himself is irrelevant, as the squad attests.
The good news, if any can be gleaned from this election, is that while the Democrats spend the next four years in fruitless battles to pass squad-initiated laws, Trump’s legacy will live on, at home and abroad, whether or not he remains at the helm.
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