But there is another factor affecting President Biden’s actions. The activists in the United States calling for Biden to rethink his Israeli-Palestinian policies are running a very smart protest movement, using tactics that are building momentum for their cause and increasing dissatisfaction with the White House’s handling of this issue.
The campaign to end Israel’s destruction of Gaza, or at least U.S. backing of it, isn’t formally led by a single individual or group. Organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace are deeply involved, but so are individuals acting on their own. This combination of structure and structurelessness isn’t unusual; that’s what happened during the Black Freedom movement in the 20th century and Black Lives Matter over the past decade.
Both collectively and individually, these activists have made three particularly savvy decisions. First, their language choices have been wise. Early on, the movement coalesced around calling for a cease-fire. That was important for a number of reasons. The activists had a single, clear demand. They were stating it in unison, constantly.
And while many Americans might not at first have fully understood the policy implications of a cease-fire, the word itself has an obvious meaning. And “ceasing fire” has a more positive connotation than, say, “defunding.” So it’s much easier to get politicians to support a cease-fire than defunding the police.
A clear sign that the term “cease-fire” has been successful is that Biden and his team are trying to co-opt it by saying they, too, support a cease-fire. (What they mean is a few weeks’ pause in the fighting, to accelerate the release of hostages held by Hamas, not the more permanent end to the post-Oct. 7 conflict that the activists want.)
The activists’ (not all, but many) invocation of the word “genocide” has also been important. Experts differ on whether Israel’s actions are best described as genocide, ethnic cleansing, indiscriminate killing, war crimes or not quite any of those. But because it’s hard to conclusively say that Israel is not committing a genocide, activists are using the most powerful term at their disposal. (And one they feel accurately describes what’s happening.) That word makes people pay attention. And when you have to repeatedly state (as Israeli officials are now) that your actions are not a genocide, you’re not in a great position.
Secondly, the activists are constantly showing up at Democratic officials’ events and interrupting them to slam the United States’ Gaza policy. This form of protest guarantees media coverage, because journalists are at these events. Biden’s appearance at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., in January was supposed to be the informal kickoff for his efforts to appeal to Black voters, who currently aren’t backing him in the numbers he needs to win reelection. But I suspect that all anyone remembers from that day was that protesters interrupted the president and called for a cease-fire in Gaza.
Confrontations between activists and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) have also gone viral.
“That is completely organic,” said Waleed Shahid, a former staffer for the left-wing group Justice Democrats who has been deeply involved in the cease-fire movement.
The value of this tactic isn’t just in creating memorable footage. Elected officials spend most of their time with staffers and donors who either agree with them or at least don’t feel comfortable forcefully disagreeing. But now, anytime Biden or other Israel-supporting Democrats appear in public, they are sharply criticized for backing a military offensive that has killed thousands of children. The president’s team is increasingly limiting access to his events and vetting potential attendees to avoid these confrontations, according to a recent NBC News report.
But I strongly suspect these disruptions are pushing Biden toward the solution that will best allow him to campaign in peace: being less openly supportive of Israel’s government. When the president is trying to get protesters to stop talking, he usually says that he is also deeply concerned about the killing of Palestinian civilians. Whether that’s sincere or not, he is making public commitments to reduce those killings.
The movement’s third smart tactic is organizing Democrats to vote “uncommitted” in the primaries. Polls have shown for months that a large bloc of Democrats oppose Biden’s Gaza policy. But having more than 300,000 people in several states vote against the president showed that those polls reflected a reality on the ground.
More than 100,000 Democratic voters in Michigan ― a state Biden desperately needs to win in November — choosing “uncommitted” illustrated that Democrats have not just an intraparty policy difference but a potential electoral problem.
I’ve covered a number of presidential primaries and can’t recall such an organized uncommitted campaign to change a policy. So this move was particularly innovative.
This uncommitted campaign was more formally organized. Shahid wrote a memo in January to other progressive leaders, calling for a protest vote in the Michigan primary in particular. Shahid told me it was clear late last year that the media would shift away from the Gaza story to presidential election coverage at the start of 2024. So “uncommitted” would effectively be a candidate in the primaries, keeping Gaza in the news.
To be sure, not every action of this movement has been smart. Activists who used the phrase “from the river to sea” made it easier for those supporting Israel’s military actions to claim the movement is rooted in antisemitism.
And while a growing number of Americans, particularly Democrats, want a lasting cease-fire and for Washington to stop providing arms to Israel, Biden isn’t pursuing either of those avenues. He is personally very pro-Israel. And calling for a cease-fire or suspending aid to Israel would be an admission that his strategy over the past five months was flawed from the start. Presidents are usually reluctant to acknowledge major mistakes.
“The policy hasn’t changed. It’s really only been the messaging,” Shahid admitted.
So the movement isn’t yet achieving its main goals. But keeping the Gaza conflict at the forefront of national politics, getting tens of thousands of Democrats to vote against the incumbent Democratic president and making politicians nervous about speaking in public are significant achievements.
Biden and other Democratic leaders constantly say they are acting to defend democracy. But in my view, the real democrats right now are these activists, using every tactic they can to democratically force a much-needed policy change.
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