President Joe Biden’s support among some Democrats is slipping under his unwavering public backing of Israel’s war in Gaza, and is likely to be tested again as Israel appears before the United Nations’ International Court of Justice to defend against allegations of genocide.  

The Palestinian Ministry of Health reports Israeli forces have killed more than 23,000 people in response to the Oct. 7 attack in which Hamas terrorists killed 1,300 and took more than 200 people as hostages.  

The events place Biden and Democrats between a rock and a very hard place ten months out from the presidential election as they toe an unforgiving tightrope, pledging allegiance and war assets to the United States’ greatest ally in the Middle East while simultaneously attempting to persuade Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to conduct a more targeted attack in Gaza, spare civilians and curtail suffering. 

Jews are among the most liberal groups in the U.S. according to Pew Research from 2020. Seven-in-ten Jewish adults identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, and half describe their political views as liberal. 

However, some American Jews are incensed that their progressive allies are not more outraged by Hamas’s acts, while others are disgusted by the magnitude of death and injury Israel has exacted in Gaza.   

Biden’s own team at the Democratic National Committee is split over the administration’s handling of the war. 

“Those divisions are chiefly between older pro-Israel Democrats and younger progressives who are more sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians,” Axios reported in November. 

Newsweek reported last week that a group of staffers working on Biden’s campaign “warned the president that his volunteers are quitting ‘in droves’ over his handling of Israel’s military response in the Gaza  Strip.” 

In a letter published last week on Medium, anonymous members of Biden’s campaign staff demanded the president call for a ceasefire, citing concerns for the election outcome.

“Like so many others, we continue to be devastated by Hamas’s attack against Israeli civilians on October 7th—it was a vile assault, one that touched the consciousness of the country,” the letter read. “The subsequent killing of 20,000 Palestinian civilians, however, has struck the same societal nerve.”

In a reflection of how vexing the issue has become for Democrats, NV Dems, the formidable party apparatus built in Nevada by former U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, did not respond to requests for comment on whether the schism in the party is likely to affect fundraising and turnout efforts in the state. 

“I don’t speak for NV Dems or know anything about their inner workings, but I can’t think of a better way for NV Dems to show the Reid machine is still running at full capacity than to address the issue in a meaningful way,” said Laura Martin, executive director of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada (PLAN).

Americans broadly disapprove of the way President Biden is handling the war between Israel and Hamas, a New York Times poll found last month, with older voters more tolerant of Israel’s tactics and Biden’s response.

“Most young voters, however, responded to question after question with answers showing that they see the worst in Israel,” the Times wrote. “Few of them believe Israelis are serious about peace with the Palestinians. Nearly half say Israel is intentionally killing civilians. Nearly three-fourths say Israel is not taking enough precautions to avoid civilian casualties. And a majority oppose additional economic and military aid to Israel.”

Young voters played a key role in electing Biden in 2020.  

The Center for Information & Research on Civic Engagement and Learning at Tufts University estimates 50% of young Americans, ages 18-29, voted in the 2020 presidential election, “a remarkable 11-point increase from 2016 (39%) and likely one of the highest rates of youth electoral participation since the voting age was lowered to 18.” 

An organization of Muslim community leaders called Abandon Biden is targeting voters in swing states, including Nevada, where its membership is “mostly young, probably college age – 20s and 30s.” says Las Vegas attorney Nicholas Klein, a member of the coalition. “And we have some of the senior religious leaders in the community in their 50s and 60s.” 

Klein said the group is not currently targeting pro-Israeli federal candidates such as Sen. Jacky Rosen and Rep. Susie Lee, the only Democrat in the Nevada House delegation to vote to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Minnesota) for perceived anti-semitism. 

“The purpose behind abandoning Biden is equally applicable to other persons in office,” Klein said. “But right now, the primary focus is on Biden because of his positions.”

Lee did not respond to requests for an interview. Rep. Steven Horsford, also a Democrat, declined to comment, according to a spokesman.  

“I stand with Israel as it continues its efforts to root out Hamas and believe that the United States can support Israel’s defense while also urging the protection of innocent Palestinians,” Rep. Dina Titus, a Democrat, said in a statement. “These actions are not mutually exclusive, and we must continue to do both.”

Titus stressed the need for the return of the hostages and for long-term stability in the region.

“As Israel moves to a less-intensive phase in the war, we will see greater humanitarian aid not just entering Gaza but spreading throughout the enclave more easily,” Titus said. “This new phase will also ease overcrowding, address the public health crisis, and better attend to Palestinians’ needs. The reconstruction of Gaza needs to be a long-term priority for the region.”

Rosen, a Jew and former president of Congregation Ner Tamid in Henderson, is on the ballot in November. Her campaign says she is not concerned about the split in the Democratic Party keeping voters, especially the young, from the polls, and says she stands by Biden.

“Israel must defeat Hamas, which launched the deadliest attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust that included horrific acts of mutilation, torture, rape, and mass hostage-taking,” Rosen said in a statement. “At the same time, Israel must take precautions to prevent the loss of innocent civilian lives while the United States works to deliver humanitarian aid that reaches the Palestinian people.” 

Rosen’s colleague, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto echoed Rosen’s comments while also citing reproductive freedom as a means of ensuring Democratic voters turn out. 

“Nevada is a proud pro-choice state,” Cortez Masto said in a statement. “Women’s rights are on the ballot in 2024 and Nevada voters understand the importance of this election

Netanyahu, a conservative hardliner, has repeatedly suggested Palestinians will meet the fate of the Amalek, Old Testament victims of attempted genocide perpetrated by Jews. 

Rosen declined to weigh in on Netanyahu’s future, saying that should be left to the people of Israel, but says she is committed to a two-state solution. 

“A secure Israel and peaceful Palestinian state are needed now more than ever before,” she said.

Last week, while speaking at an event in Las Vegas, Rosen quickly exited when questioned by three pro-Palestinian individuals in the audience. 

Rosen’s campaign referred the Current to comments from Fernando Romero of Hispanics in Politics, indicating the pro-Palestinian attendees made others fearful. However, Rosen’s staff declined to say whether the senator left the event out of fear. 

“Winning elections is a game of addition,” Martin of PLAN told the Current. “I’m not sure laughing at protestors, ignoring them, or trying to get them fired is achieving that goal. Not to mention the number of Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim donors and voters in Nevada the party needs who now feel completely abandoned.”

On Wednesday, Rosen called on Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee  Chairman Bernie Sanders to conduct a hearing on antisemitism on college campuses and “the actions needed to keep Jewish students safe from antisemitic harassment and discrimination.” 

‘It’s the economy, stupid’

With ten months to go until the election, time for the conflict in the Middle East to cool may be on Biden’s side, suggests Elliot Malin, a nonpartisan Nevada lobbyist.  

“I do think that the president saying to Netanyahu, ‘Hey, you have to do a better job,’ has actually helped on a humanitarian level, but it is also going to show Americans that the President does have his eye on it, and is working to make sure that as many civilian non- combatants as possible are not harmed, or killed,” Malin said in an interview. 

The economy, not the war, is the top-of-mind issue for young Americans as the election approaches, according to pollsters. But faced with a potential rematch between Biden and former President Donald Trump, the conflict in the Middle East could prove to be a decisive factor for turnout and one that threatens an already tepid Democratic coalition. 

Malin says Republican voters who support Israel should be more outraged by Trump’s reference last weekend to Jan. 6 defendants as “hostages” than Biden’s support for Israel.

“Nobody has been treated ever in history so badly as those people,” Trump said while campaigning in Iowa on the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection. 

“If he thinks that people being arrested for trying to storm the United States Capitol and overthrow the elected government is a worse treatment than people who were tortured in the Holocaust, or by Pol Pot in Cambodia, or by putting Japanese Americans in internment camps, he’s either a moron or doesn’t know history,” Malin said.  

Trump, in his first presidency, attempted to ban Muslims from entering the United States. 

Would the Abandon Biden coalition find a second Trump administration more palatable than re-electing Biden? 

Yes, says Muslim-American Klein. 

“If somebody decides not to vote, or vote for an independent candidate, or vote for Trump, we still see those choices as morally and ethically superior to offering any support to Biden ever again.”

Note: This story was updated with comment from Rep. Dina Titus.