Israel Using U.S. Election To Take Free Hand Against Gaza

By Robert E. Hunter, Responsible Statecraft

The Knesset’s vote this week to ban the United Nations Works and Relief Agency (UNWRA), the principal humanitarian aid group in the Palestinian territories, is the latest Israeli enormity in its year-long war in Gaza.

This move, which will impact two million civilians under siege in Gaza, underscores a central point: the Israeli government’s expectation that the Biden administration will acquiesce in whatever Tel Aviv wants to do in this war — even starvation tactics — and now also in Lebanon.

The State Department said that if the Knesset did not reverse its vote there “could be consequences under U.S. law.” But judging from U.S. behavior, any consequences will be limited to words, not limits on American military or political support.

Palestinians at the site of an Israeli airstrike at an United Nations (UNRWA) school in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip, on July 15, 2024

The timing of this ban on UNWRA, fostered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his most extreme cabinet members, was not happenstance. He knows he has “free play” in anything he wants to do, at least until the elections on Tuesday. But he can’t be sure that afterwards, during his lame-duck tenure, President Joe Biden won’t find the necessary gumption to tell Israel that “enough is enough.” Given Biden’s career-long support for Israel’s behavior, that is most unlikely to happen, but Netanyahu has been taking no chances.

At the same time, the Biden administration is looking at polling numbers regarding the election in swing states, notably Michigan and Wisconsin. These states are home to large Muslim-American constituencies. During last February’s Democratic presidential primary in Michigan, because of President Biden’s unstinting support for Israel in Gaza, many tens of thousands of these voters either stayed home or cast “uncommitted” ballots against him. It is unknowable whether that electoral behavior will be repeated on November 5, and whether it could tip the vote in one or two swing states, thus potentially denying Kamala Harris the presidency. Recent polling suggests that Trump is gaining support from Arab-American voters in the days before the election.

At the same time, the Democratic party, and presumably their voters, too, are split on Israel’s case. Again, how the numbers will add up is unknowable.