Biden, speaking on campus protests, says both free speech and rule of law 'must be upheld'
President Joe Biden on Thursday spoke from the White House on college protests happening across the nation in connection with the Israel-Hamas war.
Wake up, dude. Young people are mad about your policy on Israel. It’s not gonna end.
Young people are divided on Israel/Gaza.
Asked whether or not they sympathize with various groups involved in the war, we found that majorities of young Americans hold sympathy for the Israeli (52% sympathize) and the Palestinian people (56% sympathize), while they have far less sympathy for their governments (29% sympathize with the Israeli government; 32% with the Palestinian government). Seventeen percent (17%) expressed sympathy toward Hamas; for those who were presented with the information in a split sample that Hamas was an Islamist militant group, sympathy dipped to 13%.
When young Americans are asked whether or not they believe Israel's response so far to the October 7 attack by Hamas has been justified, a plurality indicates that they don't know (45%). About a fifth (21%) report that Israel's response was justified with 32% believing it was not justified.
Reporter: "Mr President, has the protests forced you to reconsider any of the policies with regard to the region?"
Biden: "No."
Joe Biden's Pro Reelection Killer 2K24
He spent about a couple seconds talking about free speech so that he could go on to talk about law and order, which is what he really wanted to emphasize, and that took up the majority of his stupid little speech.
Ok, here's the thing.
I'm going to put aside my views on both Israel and Palestine, along with whether or not I agree with Biden's handling of the situation.
But let's be realistic. The jewish population in the US is a bit over 7.5 million people. There's roughly 250,000 Palestinians in the US. Biden withdrawing support from Israel may very well be the right thing to do. But instead of the Palestinians and their supporters protesting, it would be the Jewish population and their supporters, which is far, far larger. Biden's numbers would be even lower than they are now, the protests would be far larger than they are now, and antisemitism would spiral out of control. If the Jewish population were to withdraw support for Biden as much as the Palestinians did, Biden might as well drop out of the race and hand Trump the presidency on a silver platter.
From a political point of view, Biden is in a no-win situation. This is what happened because he chose to side with Israel. It would be worse for him if he supported Palestine from day one and got flack from the Jewish population. And if he keeps flip-flopping, he'll end up just pissing both groups off.
This logic relies on the entire Jewish population in the US siding with Israel. They dont. What Israel is doing is fucking evil and a lot of people know it, regardless of faith or culture.
There are unfortunately an order of magnitude more non-Jew Zionists than Jew Zionists because its a popular belief in extreme (and not so extreme) Christian ideologies. Something to do with the rapture starting there.
This logic relies on the entire Jewish population in the US siding with Israel. They dont.
No, but look at the numbers. 7.5 million jews vs. 250k palestinians. Even if only 10% sides with Israel (and I'd be willing to bet that percentage is significantly higher), that's still 3X the size of the entire palestinian population, which means Biden would still be in worse shape than he's in now.
Here's polling to support your points:
Still, I would bet that Israeli supporters in every category skew conservative and probably aren't going to vote for Biden regardless.
I do agree that he's trying to ride the fence, and it's not a good look from either side.
Still, I would bet that Israeli supporters in every category skew conservative and probably aren’t going to vote for Biden regardless.
As I said to another poster: There's 7.5 million jews vs. 250k palestinians. Even if Biden supported Palestine from the beginning and only lost a fraction of support from Jews, that fraction is still likely higher than the entire Palestinian population.
Let's say the split was 90/10. 90% of the jewish population wasn't going to vote for Biden regardless. 10% would have. That 10% still represents 750,000 people, which is still 3X higher than the entire palestinian population.
But being Jewish doesn’t mean you support Israel or what they are doing. I mean look at Bernie.
If only 10% of the jewish population supports Israel, that's still 750,000 people, or 3X the entire Palestinian population. From a political standpoint, Biden would still be worse off.
Speaking in terms of the percent of the population doesn't matter because we don't use the popular vote to elect the president. We need to see how many of them are in swing states. There's a good chance the war in Israel will turn Michigan red.
Biden's speech begins at the 37:30 mark: https://www.youtube.com/live/AXLjdZbwutY
Gordian knot. He doesn't want to be anti-free speech or anti-protest, but he also can't tolerate violence or bigotry.
but he also can't tolerate violence or bigotry.
Are you sure about that? Because supporting an active genocide kinda makes it seem like he’s ok with violence & bigotry…just not with protesters speaking up against it. If you watch any of the videos from the protest encampments, I think you’ll see that the violence & bigotry is not coming from them.
