Gaza is a litmus test for GOP frontrunners 

Photo: Flash90

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lowly but surely, it’s dawning on America’s presidential hopefuls that the Gaza Strip will become uninhabitable if Israel succeeds in destroying the terror infrastructure Hamas methodically embedded in every neighborhood.

The Biden administration is clamoring for a plan to rebuild Gaza from the rubble. This would take years and billions of dollars, if it is even feasible. Until then, the majority of Gaza’s estimated two million residents would have to find somewhere else to live.

The question becomes, where? And should the United States open its doors?

This quagmire has already turned into debate fodder, even before Republican candidates share the spotlight next Wednesday night in Miami at the third presidential debate.

The stage will be roomier now that Mike Pence has bowed out of the race, and at least one other candidate who appeared in the first two debates may not qualify for this round due to poor showing in the polls and insufficient donor support.

The remaining candidates are sharpening their swords, vying for taking the toughest stance on denying entry to Gaza refugees.

Let’s start with the acknowledged frontrunner, Donald Trump, who is boycotting the debates. At a campaign stop in Iowa, Trump promised that if he is reelected, he will revise his travel ban to deny entry both to Gazans and to anyone else who adheres to anti-American ideologies.

“If you empathize with radical Islamic terrorists and extremists, you’re disqualified,” Trump said. “If you want to abolish the State of Israel, you’re disqualified.”

Ron DeSantis, running a distant second to Trump nationally, didn’t relate to Trump’s call for an outright entry ban, but told journalist Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation that Arab countries should absorb Gazan and Palestinian refugees. DeSantis described the culture in Gaza as “toxic,” and said America should not spread the welcome mat to refugees who “would increase anti-Semitism” and “anti-Americanism.”

Nikki Haley, who has overtaken DeSantis in New Hampshire and her home state of South Carolina, took a more nuanced approach, as she often does. She told CNN’s Jake Tapper that many Gazans want to be free of Hamas rule and noted that Americans tend to distinguish between Gaza civilians and the terrorists that rule them. Having said that, she blamed neighboring Arab countries for not opening their gates. A Haley spokesman later clarified her stance, telling Politico that pro-Hamas countries such as Qatar, Turkey, and Iran should absorb Gaza immigrants.

Even Vivek Ramaswamy, whose policy on Israel is a constant work in progress, told an audience at the annual Republican Jewish Coalition conference in Las Vegas that Israel should feel free to abandon what he called the “myth” of a two-state solution, and that the international community should encourage Gazans to emigrate to other countries.

Siege Mentality

The emerging picture is that all of the major Republican presidential candidates are willing to entertain the idea of resettling Palestinians elsewhere and distancing them from Israel’s borders. That would be a positive development, for both Israel and Palestinians seeking a better life far from the seething tensions of the Middle East.

Without taking sides in American partisan politics, the Netanyahu government has a golden opportunity to leverage the sudden outbreak of internal unity to convince Israelis that the ultimate disposition of Gaza is not Israel’s responsibility and to build upon growing skepticism for a two-state solution.

That will be a daunting task, says Kenneth Levin, a psychiatrist, historian, and author of The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People Under Siege.

Speaking on a Middle East Forum webinar last week, Levin contended that Israel is a “study in the psychology of a chronically attacked population… that leads some of the besieged to assuage their attackers.”

Levin says the notion that Israel could obtain peace by making territorial concessions to the Palestinian Authority was a “delusion of the left” that led to the 1993 Oslo Accords. The same misconception spread throughout Israel’s political and intelligence echelons, who bought into the narrative that somehow Israel is responsible for the plight of Gaza and that Hamas could be deterred and bought off with jobs in Israel and suitcases stuffed with dollars transported via Qatar.

“Going forward, any delusion Israel indulges about pacifying genocidally anti-Semitic organizations is self-destructive,” Levin said. “If these organizations remain, the impulse to placate the enemy is an internal problem that will resurface.”

Who Will Pay the Price?

In the meantime, Israel appears to be operating under a tailwind of grassroots American support, but that might also prove to be shaky.

Over the weekend, McLaughlin and Associates, a pollster whose clients have included Donald Trump and Binyamin Netanyahu, released a survey it conducted in partnership with Gingrich360, an organization headed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his wife, Callista.

The combined effort, known as America’s New Majority Project, surveyed 2,000 voters nationwide on a variety of issues related to the current Israel-Hamas conflict.

We will focus here on two questions in particular, with which the pollsters offered respondents a choice of two statements and asked which one they agreed with the most:

1. “Israel must do what is necessary to destroy Hamas. Palestinian civilian casualties are tragic but ultimately the fault of Hamas for launching a terrorist attack against Israel.”

Or:

2. “Civilian deaths are never acceptable. Israel is at fault for every Palestinian death in this war and should cease any military operation that endangers Palestinian civilians.”

Republicans agreed with the first statement by an overwhelming margin, with 72% agreeing and just 15% disagreeing. Among Democrats, the gap was much closer, with just 43% saying Israel must do what’s necessary and 38% saying Israel is at fault.

When given the same choice between agreeing that America’s goal should be to support Israel until it eliminates the Hamas terrorist threat, or, on the other hand, ending the war as soon as possible, the results were mixed.

By an almost two-to-one margin (58%-30%), Republicans supported Israel carrying through to the end, while Democrats favored (56%-31%) ending the war as soon as possible.

In one measure of Democratic sentiment unrelated to this survey, New York’s Congressman Jamaal Bowman noted that 50% of Gaza’s residents are children, and the US should open its doors to them, even while slamming them shut on adults who support Hamas.

Bowman recently tarnished his reputation with a high school prank, allegedly pulling a fire alarm in a Capitol building hallway. He will probably end up with a slap on the wrist, but what’s truly alarming is the naivete of his position.

A generation or more of Gaza youngsters have been fed a steady diet in their schools consisting of anti-Semitism and the most vicious Nazi propaganda. Gaza youth spend summers at Hamas-sponsored military camps training in the types of warfare their elder peers unleashed on Israel on Simchas Torah.

For now, President Biden has managed to drown out these progressive Democratic voices to give the IDF time to ramp up its ground campaign in Gaza, but he will need their support to pass his $106 billion emergency aid package and will also need progressive votes to win a second term.

At some point, Biden will have to compromise to get something done, and whether those compromises will come at Israel’s expense, or from somewhere else, remains to be seen.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 984)