Grossly simplified, the Middle East conflict boils down to two peoples living in the same space.
As you know, the latest stage of the conflict began Oct. 7, 2023, when Palestinian terrorists from Gaza invaded Israel, massacred over 1,100 people, and took about 250 hostages. Israel responded with a military attack on Gaza.
The Israeli campaign, which has produced high numbers of civilian casualties, has sparked protests in the U.S. against the Biden administration, which supports Israel and is supplying it with weapons while trying to bring about a ceasefire.
The war is now expanding into Lebanon and threatens direct conflict between Israel and Iran, which supports the Palestinian Hamas and Hezbollah militant organizations.
A Mother Jones article published on Thursday, October 10, 2024, is an edited interview with Columbia University Prof. Rashid Khalidi (photo, above; profile here), styled as “the most renowned Palestinian American historian today.”
If you’re a political junkie who closely follows election news, you’ve probably picked up that Michigan is a key swing state, has a large concentration of ethnic Arab-American voters, and those voters aren’t happy with Biden’s policies toward the Israel-Palestinian conflict, which has Democrats worried.
Prof. Khalidi is, of course, sympathetic to the Palestinians, so you’ll have to judge for yourself how objective his views on the political situation are. Mother Jones describes his academic career in there terms: “[H]e uproots deep assumptions about Israel and Palestine.”
First, as to the outlook, Prof. Khalidi thinks it’s “potentially a multiyear war now,” the risks of a regional confrontation have grown, and it’s “potentially going to be a world war,” or at least a major regional war.
As for the U.S. role, in past Mideast flareups, “after backing Israel fully, the United States stopped Israel,” but there’s no sign of that now. Instead, he says, the Biden administration is “encouraging Israel and arming and protecting them diplomatically, which in “historical perspective, this is unique to my knowledge.”
Kamala Harris disputes that in her campaign rhetoric, saying “we’ve got to de-escalate” and “reach a ceasefire,” and in fact Biden has been active diplomatically trying to do that (see Reuters story of October 20, 2024, here). But those efforts clearly haven’t impressed pro-Palestinian campus protesters, who have called in vain for the U.S. to stop supplying weaponry to Israel.
Prof. Khalid does offer what appears to be an astute sizing-up of the U.S. electoral landscape a month away from the 2024 election, which virtually all U.S. media sources view as a dead heat that will turn on narrow vote margins in a few key swing states, including Michigan with its disgruntled Arab-American voters. Young voters also factor into campaign strategy, who are more sensitive to Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians, and more upset about the Gaza violence.
He says, “I think one of the terrible ironies of this—we will only find this out after the election—might be that Harris loses the election because she loses Michigan. Because she lost young people and Arabs and Muslims.”
“I don’t think Biden and Harris have a whole lot to worry about on their right,” because voters who would be offended by a shift away from Israel will vote for Trump anyway. I’m not so sure about that; Jewish voters are traditionally a Democratic constituency, and most of the American Jewish community has been staunchly pro-Israel during this conflict.
The professor believes in the constituencies sympathetic to Palestinian injustices,” some people are going to hold their noses and vote for Harris,” while others “will not vote for her under any circumstances,” and I think that’s probably true. Then, this is where things get interesting:
“And if that tips the margin in favor of Trump, it will be one of the most colossal failures of the Democratic Party leadership in modern history to not understand that there’s lots of space to their left and there’s no space to their right. They have hewed right, right, right on this—at least publicly. Personally, I don’t understand that electoral calculation.”
Basically, he’s saying they have no votes to lose by moving away from Israeli militancy, and the election to lose if failing to do so costs them crucial votes among Arab-Americans and young people (presumably mostly on campuses).
He also says, “I don’t understand how the United States doesn’t see that the expansion of this war is extremely harmful to any possible definition of American national interests.” I don’t think anyone would dispute this assessment; the problem is, it’s really out of American policymakers’ hands, because we can’t tell the Netanyahu government what to do.
Prof. Khalid argues that American political, media, university, and corporate elites are disconnected from ordinary Americans, “who reject the Biden policy, want a ceasefire, and are opposed to continuing to arm Israel.” I don’t think that’s true; I see the pro-Palestinian protesters as a small minority, and the general public as mostly supportive of Israel’s side in the conflict, not least because it began by Israel being attacked in a vicious manner.
Also, we don’t want to overestimate how much the American general public knows about the conflict. I think the answer is, “very little.” When you consider how disengaged people are from news, politics, and how indifferent they are to world affairs, any competent political strategist is going to realize American voters care more about the price of milk and eggs than Biden’s Middle East policies.
And, indeed, the 2024 election campaigns, and media coverage, have tended to focus on economic issues at home. If Trump gets elected again, it won’t be because of Biden’s support for Israel, but because of millions of Americans’ economic angst. What makes the Israel-Palestinian issue important in this election is its ability to influence a small number of votes where, in an extremely close election, that might be all it takes to determine the winner.
Getting back to Prof. Khalid, he clearly has complaints — about the Biden administration, which includes Harris, “back[ing] Israel to the hilt,” and about Israel’s conduct:
“Israel killed the guy they were negotiating with in Tehran — Haniyeh. They don’t say anything. You want a ceasefire? Haniyeh allegedly wanted a ceasefire. Israel goes and kills the guy in Tehran. The US doesn’t say anything. Not a peep. This is a high-level provocation. You’re trying to bring about a ceasefire on the Lebanese border? The Israelis kill the person they’re negotiating with. Not a peep.”
He continues, “I find it mind-boggling the degree to which the elite is blind to the damage that this is clearly doing to the United States in the world and in the Middle East—and the dangers that entails.” Without doubt, the continuation of the conflict — not to mention its expansion into Lebanon and possibly Iran — is hurting the U.S. even if it doesn’t result in Trump’s re-election, and it could do that, too.
As he sees it, Harris and the Democratic establishment “have obviously made a decision that they … can ignore Arabs and Muslims, and … win the election anyway.” Prof. Khalid believes American public opinion toward Israel has shifted since the 1960s, when Americans unequivocally supported Israel, and I think that’s true at least among some segments of the American public.
In the 1970s, Americans were horrified by the Munich Olympics massacre. The following years brought a series of airplane hijackings, Entebbe, suicide bombings, and intifadas; through it all the Palestinians were the bad guys. The Palestinian people may be — almost certainly are — victims; but Palestinian militants and terrorists have given them a bad reputation like a millstone around their necks.
But lately, Israel has been overplaying its hand. The Gaza war has seen what appear to be deliberate, targeted attacks against schools, hospitals, aid workers, and journalists. Reports have emerged of tortured Palestinian prisoners.
In the West Bank, violent Israeli settlers push Palestinian farmers and villagers off their land, and violently assault unarmed Palestinian civilians, while Israeli police and military forces stand by and watch. A couple of far-right Israeli politicians in Netanyahu’s cabinet open talk about genocide.
As Prof. Khalid sees it, Israeli leaders have created a conundrum, in which they “either entirely annihilate the Palestinian population or drive it out,” or they “come to terms with it.” But, “They’re not willing to do that right now.” At this point, he returns to discussing what he calls “anti-democratic” U.S. elites, which he believes “will hold on stubbornly” to their support for Israel.
He sees the American political system as unresponsive to public opinion, and much more influenced by money. I think he’s overstating that case; Trump reflects the anxieties and grievances, whether valid or not, his following; and U.S. elections clearly are swayed by broad public opinion, even when the money advantage is on the losing side.
Prof. Khalid also says, “There’s no indication that there will be a change for quite a while, regardless of who is elected in November.” When talking about the Mideast conflict, that may be true. Or it may not be. The irony of U.S. presidential elections is that they’re often decided by domestic issues, but nearly every president faces foreign crises and that’s where who wins an election has the largest impact and matters the most.
Trump is a pied piper leading a following that occasionally degenerates into little (and not so little) mobs. Their heads are filled with disinformation, and they’re motivated by grievances, some of them racist in nature. Trump himself is a would-be authoritarian who demolishes civilized norms of behavior, and does not respect constitutional restraints, laws, courts, judges, or the right of our citizens to elect someone else.
Whoever is elected in 2024 will have to grapple with the ongoing wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, and America’s limited ability to influence the course of those conflicts. The next president also could have a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, or armed conflict in the South China Sea, dumped on him or her. He or she may have the burden of either preventing, or fighting and winning, World War III (although I personally don’t think things will come to that).
This is serious stuff. I have my own opinion as to which of Trump or Harris I’d rather have in the White House dealing with those dangers. I make no secret of it; Trump is dangerously incompetent in foreign affairs, apart from his lack of character, lawlessness, demagoguery, constant lying, and the GOP’s evolution from a conservative party wanting government to stay out of people’s lives to an aggressive intruder seeking to run every aspect of our lives.
The Democratic Party may well be, as Prof. Khalid argues, trapped into supporting a different Israel that has, like the Republican Party, degenerated into aggression and immorality. It would be a supreme irony, and terrible thing, if that puts Trump in power and its baggage is domestic oppression and global aggression. This doesn’t mean Harris should pander to the small but militant pro-Palestinian vote. It does mean those voters should be careful what they wish for.
Given a country of 335 million people, none of us can expect to get exactly what we want from its tumultuous politics. Our leaders will always be imperfect, even when they do what we want. All of us need to remember that unattainable perfection is very much the enemy of realizable good. Harris is not perfect, but Trump losing the election would be good. No voter should lose sight of the big picture.