In all democracies, as the election date approaches, we only think in the short term: win first, pick up the pieces later. The war in the Gaza Strip risks causing Joe Biden to lose the election and spawning a new generation of terrorists. Bad results!
The polls, seven months before the American presidential election, must be examined with restraint. They serve, despite everything, as benchmarks in the rough seas of the start of the electoral campaign.
The survey of Wall Street Journal, this week, discerns many pitfalls on the path of Joe Biden. In six of the seven key states that will make a difference on November 5, he is behind Donald Trump and the two are tied in the seventh.
Pollsters particularly note the Democratic candidate’s difficulties in reforming the coalition that brought him to power in 2020. The African-American electorate, Latino men and voters under 40 show significantly less enthusiasm than ‘Four years ago.
GAZA AND ITS DEADLY MISTAKES
It is known: the continuation and extension of the Israeli offensive in Gaza is negatively impacting Joe Biden’s campaign. The unconditional support he expresses towards Israel, even after a blunder such as the attack on a convoy of the American NGO World Central Kitchen and the death of seven humanitarian workers, is less and less understood and more and more poorly accepted.
In the key states on which the pollsters of the Wall Street Journalthe gaps between the candidates are so thin that a little too much disaffection with Biden and the victory will be forgotten.
LONG-TERM DISORDERS
Joe Biden’s presidential campaign could well be only a marginal victim of this devastating war in Gaza. Last month, the US intelligence community – 18 agencies, from the well-known like the CIA and the FBI to the less familiar like Space Force Intelligence – released its annual report on threats to the United States.
There we find the usual “bad guys”: China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. Questioned, however, by members of a Senate committee, Avril Haine, the director of national intelligence, began to describe the pernicious and long-term effect of the butchery in Gaza.
“The crisis has galvanized violence from various actors around the world. And although it is too early to tell, it is likely that the conflict in Gaza will have a generational impact on terrorism.” Even on a smaller scale, she noted, “we saw how [le conflit] incites individuals to commit acts of anti-Semitism and Islamophobic terrorism around the world.
THE WARNING WAS THERE
Joe Biden, for his presidential salvation, must worry about the consequences of his failure with the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Even more terrifying, its own intelligence services foresee decades of terrorist threat inspired by the lamentable fate reserved for the Palestinian population.
Trump is no better than Biden and, no more than the other, expresses any desire to revisit sulphurous political and military support for Israel in its offensive. It will still end one day, this war, but will have plunged us into a new terrorist fear. We will have been warned.