Rania Abu Anza spent ten years trying for children. After three rounds of in-vitro fertilization, she finally became pregnant and gave birth to twins: a boy, Naeim, and a girl, Wissam. On Saturday, an Israeli strike in Rafah killed the 5-month-old twins, her husband, and at least 11 other relatives, the Associated Press reported. “I screamed for my children and my husband,” she said. “They were all dead. Their father took them and left me behind.” In response, the Israeli military said only that it “follows international law and takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm.” It should be clear to all by now that this isn’t true. Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed over 30,000 Palestinians. As Israel reduces neighborhoods to rubble and ash, the U.S. shrugs off its complicity. The screams of Rania Abu Anza echo here, too. Look no further than Aaron Bushnell, who set himself on fire in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, crying out for a free Palestine.
For months, protesters have pressured the Biden administration to cut off military aid to Israel and to demand a permanent cease-fire in the war against Hamas. The Listen to Michigan campaign urged the state to vote “uncommitted” in the Democratic presidential primary as a show of dissent, and more than 100,000 did — enough discontent that could cost Biden the critical swing state and the presidency. He has responded to the anger over his Israel policy by hiding. NBC News reported last week that the president’s aides are trying to insulate him from protesters by making his events “smaller, withholding their precise locations from the media and the public until he arrives, avoiding college campuses and, in at least one instance, considering hiring a private company to vet attendees.”
Biden is about to make a serious error, his latest in a long series. The protesters aren’t going away, not as long as Israel keeps killing Palestinians with American munitions and Biden’s support. If he wants to win in November, he needs to campaign vigorously and risk contact with protesters. For the same reason, he should heed what they are saying and reverse course on Israel, now. Morality demands it, and American democracy may depend on it.
Polls show Biden trailing Donald Trump. Though Trump is deeply unpopular, and is barely younger than Biden, the current president has yet to quell public concern over his age. He won’t succeed at this if he decides to hide from voters. That strategy isn’t just shortsighted; it’s also at odds with Biden’s stated priorities. Democrats have cast the election as a battle for the soul of democracy. Biden should act accordingly: Nonviolent protest is a hallmark of a healthy democracy — the very institution at stake this year. By reducing Biden’s availability to the public, aides show a troubling lack of confidence in the voters they need to win.
Biden’s failures have global ramifications. He has been inexcusably slow to recognize the humanitarian catastrophe at hand — and he is reluctant, still, to assign blame where it belongs. The latest addition to Gaza’s tally of suffering is starvation. As the Washington Post put it on Sunday, Israel has refused to allow significant humanitarian aid into Gaza even as it “relies on U.S. bombs and diplomatic support” to kill Palestinian civilians by the thousands. Though the U.S. air-dropped 38,000 meals into Gaza over the weekend, that paltry effort won’t reach most Palestinians in need or address Israeli brutality. Leaving for aid can be deadly too. Days before the air drops, Israeli troops fired on hungry people who’d surrounded an aid truck, hoping for flour. Israel has wiped entire families from existence in what the writer Pankaj Mishra has called “the liquidation of Gaza.” Biden greets it all with empty rhetoric and futile gestures.
The U.S. says it is trying to broker a temporary cease-fire between Israel and Hamas for the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. But the White House will go no further, it seems. Vice-President Kamala Harris cannot show up in Selma, Alabama, call for another “humanitarian pause,” and hope to regain the moral territory her government has ceded. Biden himself owes protesters more than lip service. Israel’s murderous campaign in Gaza must permanently end. If it does not, Israel should not receive an ounce of aid from the U.S. government. It’s too late to save Rania Abu Anza’s children. But if Biden acts now, he could protect others from the same fate. He could even protect himself: not from protesters but from a devastating political failure. The protesters are right. The president can’t hide from the truth forever.
