Mahfuzur Rahman

Many believe that the key to halting the Palestine-Israel War, or in other words the Israeli genocide in Gaza, lies with two people: Israeli Premiere Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Joe Biden. Among them, there is less expectation from warmonger Netanyahu as he is the main protagonist of the war.

The international community is then looking at the U.S. president. When one claims to be a world leader, people expect such stature from him. However, the hopes of the helpless are seldom fulfilled.

EU Foreign Minister Josep Borrell termed Gaza an ‘open-air prison’ before the war and now ‘the greatest open-air graveyard’. No more words are required to describe what is going on in Gaza. Pity, there is no appetite in Netanyahu to call it enough. And there are no effective efforts in the West to at least broker a ceasefire. Talks are there but those only reveal the differences.

In December, Biden bypassed Congress while ordering military supplies to Israel. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken identified himself as a Jew in front of the press, in the presence of Netanyahu during his first visit to Israel immediately after the war broke out. These prompted Israel to bluntly count on the support of the U.S. but never restrained itself for the sake of honouring human dignity and rights.

The Arabs appear to be divided. So are the Palestinians. There is an effort now to put the blame squarely on Hamas. However, the result is brutal with thousands of innocent people, including many children, being killed. Some are dying due to war, lethal attacks and bombs; many are from famine. Many are dying of starvation and malnutrition. Many are dying for the lack of treatment and shelter.

2024 is the election year in America. I was wondering whether the near inaction of the U.S. in Gaza can be a deciding factor in the upcoming presidential election! Well, the Muslim voters account for a mere 1%. This is roughly 25 lakh voters. If we add non-Muslim Arab voters, the number may go up to 37 lakhs. A peanut!

Well, it is not always the number that matters. There are more that these numbers can do. A piece of research revealed that in 2020, 83% of Muslim voters cast their votes for Biden. Interestingly, 75% of Jewish voters also voted for Biden. But the initiation of the Israeli offensives in Gaza also initiated the Abandon-Biden campaign in Minnesota.

Many Muslim leaders and human rights activists are joining the campaign along with a section of the American youth. During the Democratic Primary in February 2024, while Biden secured 83% of votes, more than 13% of ‘uncommitted’ votes were cast as well. It is more than one lakh voters. What will happen if the same ‘uncommitted’ votes are replicated in other states? Michigan is a swing state that has 16 electoral votes. It has more than two lakh Muslim voters.

The other swing states where Biden’s future is not secured are Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

These states are well represented in Congress by the Republicans. Therefore, the Democrats are now cautious about the Michigan syndrome. In order to avoid the embarrassment due to the presence of ‘uncommitted’ votes, some of the Congressmen and Senators are raising their voices for a ceasefire in Gaza and some are criticising Netanyahu’s hard line.

There are several human rights groups, not only the Muslim organisations, which are campaigning against the Biden administration.

Human rights groups have filed a case at a California Court recently against the U.S. president, the U.S. secretary of state and the secretary of defence for being “complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza”.

The court may not go further but as the case came up to the stage of hearing in the court itself a huge setback for Biden.

Some intelligentsia are advocating for a total revamping of U.S. Middle-east policy. They are saying that the dependence on fossil fuel in the U.S. has reduced that far that it does not need to bother with its source in the Middle East anymore. Other than the ease of navigation through the Red Sea, they do not see much importance of the Middle East in U.S. foreign policy now.

Therefore, there is no need to maintain such a high level of provision to Israel. Even many liberal and democratic Israelis do not subscribe to the hard line of Netanyahu. And many American youths also do not like overseas wars or interference where the U.S. is taking an active part or has taken an active part in the near past.

Democracy works perfectly when it accommodates everyone’s views. It offers such a balance that the state sails smoothly even in a rough sea. I wish the U.S. would become such an exemplary democracy. I hope the run for the U.S. presidency will demonstrate such a democracy.
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The writer is a former Ambassador