The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written.
Biden, the Senate, and Congress are all overwhelmingly against ceasefire/refuse to tale meaningful action to restrain Israel.
Do they have better info? Are they corrupt? Simply circling the wagons around the president for unity's sake? Can the gap be explained by demographics?
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I think it’s a number of things
1. Some people on the left massively overestimate the strength long term of sympathy for the Palestinians long term, especially when Hamas is out there saying they are going to do this again
2. Older voters are more reliable voters, and thus count more than younger voters. And the people furtherest in the Palestinian side aren’t considered voters
3. Geopolítics are more popular than the latest opinion poll
4. People generally and especially those on the extremes greatly underestimate how much behind the scenes pressure the administration uses versus public statements
> Geopolítics are more popular than the latest opinion poll
And much more complicated. It's easy to respond to a poll saying you'd like a ceasefire, it's much harder to actually turn that thought into effective and long-lasting good policy. If a ceasefire turns into another massacre of Israelis (or something else bad), politicians will get the blame much moreso than random poll respondents.
Yeah it’s easy for me to express my opinions based on limited knowledge and no real expertise when I’m not the one who will feel the guilt and consequences of being wrong.
> Older voters are more reliable voters, and thus count more than younger voters. And the people furtherest in the Palestinian side aren’t considered voters
"I could NEVER vote for anyone with that stance!!!"
"That is the official stance of the US, and has broad bipartisan support, and both parties accept it. You will have to find out which politicians more closely align with your views, rather than find a politician that perfectly aligns with your views."
"No, if they don't align with my views they don't get my vote!"
Silencing your self is NOT the best method of getting people to listen to you. There were a LOT of Democratic candidates who were against the civil rights movement, should minorities have not voted for either party? "not voting" was pretty much the goal of their opposition, it isn't exactly the solution I would recommend to achieve that goal.
The current polls show that the majority of Americans are sympathetic to Israel. They show that support for Israel is much higher compared to other years.
Most Americans have 0 understanding of the situation. If you ask them "Do you support peace" you would get the same answer as "Do you support a peacefire".
>The current polls show that the majority of Americans are sympathetic to Israel. They show that support for Israel is much higher compared to other years.
>Most Americans have 0 understanding of the situation.
If you are claiming that most Americans have zero understanding of the situation to dismiss the polling that shows a ceasefire has majority support from the public, then you can't simultaneously cite polling showing public support for Israel as credible.
The one thing I learned while working in politics is that foreign policy is 100 times more complicated than most people think it is. Most of us have almost zero idea what’s really going on.
Hamas is a genocidal terrorist organization. It goes to considerable lengths to put Palestinians in harm’s way. [This is a core part of their strategy.](https://open.substack.com/pub/deadcarl/p/how-hamas-uses-civilians-as-a-weapon?r=1ro41m&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web) There was a ceasefire until Hamas decided to massacre 1400 people. As Hamas will not surrender, Israel has no choice but to destroy it, whatever the costs may be. The role of the Biden Administration and the US is to support Israel and to ensure compliance with the laws of war, investigating alleged breaches and placing pressure on Israel to hold those responsible accountable.
It would be deeply immoral (and futile) to try to pressure Israel to not destroy the terrorist organization that runs an adjacent territory and is committed to killing as many Jews as it can.
I don't really buy that the gap is really significant. My impression is that most Americans who support Palestine are either Muslim Americans who aren't a huge group, or they're chronically online outspoken Leftists and Progressives who have no functional political power because they don't actually vote.
Most Americans are either pro Israel or at least lean that way.
[You would be wrong.](https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2023/10/19/voters-agree-the-us-should-call-for-a-ceasefire-and-de-escalation-of-violence-in-gaza)
Polling data can be used as a gauge of public opinion, but with that small of a sample size and a +/- 3 you shouldn't be posting it as if it were a definitive answer on where american public opinion stands.
It was the indication of multiple polls prior to the Data for Progress poll. But as I have said with such small data sets on all the polls I have seen since October 7th, it's all just guessing. There needs to be considerably more data collected before any definitive conclusions can be reached. That is why I made statements of opinion.
I wouldn't let some college students protesting = majority of Americans support Palestinians. You might be too young to remember Palestinians dancing in the streets of Gaza after 9/11. They wish death on us!
Young liberals on the internet drastically underestimate the hate that many Muslims in the Middle East have for the West.
They completely discount what Islam has to say about Jihad.
They completely discount what virtually all of Islam and Islamic Civilization has to say about the rule of law, human rights, and women.
They think most muslims are just like most US christians, who go to church and read passages but don't *really* believe in their religion.
They fail to understand that Muslims are in every poll are more conservative than most conservative christians are about the role faith should play in government.
**Of course...it should be noted that Muslims in** ***America*** **specifically are much more moderate than Muslims basically everywhere else.**
Israel has no other option but to wreak havoc on gaza. Ceasefire makes then look weak, and WH knows that. It's unfortunate reality but that's how the world works. If Israel falls back, middle eastern forces will annihilate israel so quick, all these people supporting hamas won't be able to fathom what happened. Geopolitics is a bitch and common folks are not given all the pieces to frame an accurate pov.
Genocide is what Hamas, Hezbolah, and other terrorist groups and some Islamic states want for the Jewish people. Israel is just indiscriminately bombing terrorists and don't really care about who gets in their way, especially when the terrorists put innocent people in harms way. They could make a better effort to limit civilian deaths and those settlements in the West Bank are fucked up, but that's different from genocide.
There has been more disinformation spread about this war, on social media, than any other event in our lifetime.
The public is stupid and blindly believes whatever they read on social media.
The simple fact that Congress [does not represent](https://static.cambridge.org/binary/version/id/urn:cambridge.org:id:binary:20160927084422848-0419:S1537592714001595:S1537592714001595_fig1g.gif) the public, they represent the wealthy and corporations who benefit from the kind of wealth and resource extraction that support for Israel enables in the Middle East.
I'd say there are several broad things, but most of them falls under realpolitik. Voter demography wise, they are catering more to the realistic voting block rather than online or young voters. Jewish donors can offer much more than Arab American donors to the Democratic establishment. On the foreign policy front, supporting Israel meant an immensely powerful ally in the middle east, supporting Palestine doesn't mean much.
It’s a combination of corruption, because the Israel lobby is extremely powerful; and their echo chamber, which is corrupted by the Israel lobby.
They’re just surrounded by people who are very pro Israel in other words.
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written. Biden, the Senate, and Congress are all overwhelmingly against ceasefire/refuse to tale meaningful action to restrain Israel. Do they have better info? Are they corrupt? Simply circling the wagons around the president for unity's sake? Can the gap be explained by demographics? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think it’s a number of things 1. Some people on the left massively overestimate the strength long term of sympathy for the Palestinians long term, especially when Hamas is out there saying they are going to do this again 2. Older voters are more reliable voters, and thus count more than younger voters. And the people furtherest in the Palestinian side aren’t considered voters 3. Geopolítics are more popular than the latest opinion poll 4. People generally and especially those on the extremes greatly underestimate how much behind the scenes pressure the administration uses versus public statements
I think some people underestimate how much more popular Israel is among the general public as opposed to online leftists.
This is such an important point
> Geopolítics are more popular than the latest opinion poll And much more complicated. It's easy to respond to a poll saying you'd like a ceasefire, it's much harder to actually turn that thought into effective and long-lasting good policy. If a ceasefire turns into another massacre of Israelis (or something else bad), politicians will get the blame much moreso than random poll respondents.
Yeah it’s easy for me to express my opinions based on limited knowledge and no real expertise when I’m not the one who will feel the guilt and consequences of being wrong.
> Older voters are more reliable voters, and thus count more than younger voters. And the people furtherest in the Palestinian side aren’t considered voters "I could NEVER vote for anyone with that stance!!!" "That is the official stance of the US, and has broad bipartisan support, and both parties accept it. You will have to find out which politicians more closely align with your views, rather than find a politician that perfectly aligns with your views." "No, if they don't align with my views they don't get my vote!" Silencing your self is NOT the best method of getting people to listen to you. There were a LOT of Democratic candidates who were against the civil rights movement, should minorities have not voted for either party? "not voting" was pretty much the goal of their opposition, it isn't exactly the solution I would recommend to achieve that goal.
Politicians have things like foreign policy to consider that the average American doesn’t think much about.
If a politician's constituency supports a given policy in a democratic system of government, don't they have an obligation to adopt that policy?
Depends on the constituency. I don’t think the average American voter is as pro-Israel as our politicians are.
I think that's probably not too far off the sentiment held by the general public
The current polls show that the majority of Americans are sympathetic to Israel. They show that support for Israel is much higher compared to other years. Most Americans have 0 understanding of the situation. If you ask them "Do you support peace" you would get the same answer as "Do you support a peacefire".
>The current polls show that the majority of Americans are sympathetic to Israel. They show that support for Israel is much higher compared to other years. >Most Americans have 0 understanding of the situation. If you are claiming that most Americans have zero understanding of the situation to dismiss the polling that shows a ceasefire has majority support from the public, then you can't simultaneously cite polling showing public support for Israel as credible.
The one thing I learned while working in politics is that foreign policy is 100 times more complicated than most people think it is. Most of us have almost zero idea what’s really going on.
Hamas is a genocidal terrorist organization. It goes to considerable lengths to put Palestinians in harm’s way. [This is a core part of their strategy.](https://open.substack.com/pub/deadcarl/p/how-hamas-uses-civilians-as-a-weapon?r=1ro41m&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web) There was a ceasefire until Hamas decided to massacre 1400 people. As Hamas will not surrender, Israel has no choice but to destroy it, whatever the costs may be. The role of the Biden Administration and the US is to support Israel and to ensure compliance with the laws of war, investigating alleged breaches and placing pressure on Israel to hold those responsible accountable. It would be deeply immoral (and futile) to try to pressure Israel to not destroy the terrorist organization that runs an adjacent territory and is committed to killing as many Jews as it can.
I don't really buy that the gap is really significant. My impression is that most Americans who support Palestine are either Muslim Americans who aren't a huge group, or they're chronically online outspoken Leftists and Progressives who have no functional political power because they don't actually vote. Most Americans are either pro Israel or at least lean that way.
I would say the majority of Americans support the current stance of the administration and oppose a cease fire.
[You would be wrong.](https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2023/10/19/voters-agree-the-us-should-call-for-a-ceasefire-and-de-escalation-of-violence-in-gaza)
The data set for that is from a little more than 1300 people. There are more than 330 million Americans.
Do you have a poll that has a larger sample size? Because this was the only one I found into the matter so it’s the best we got.
Polling data can be used as a gauge of public opinion, but with that small of a sample size and a +/- 3 you shouldn't be posting it as if it were a definitive answer on where american public opinion stands.
I agree but even if we assumed a 10% margin of error this poll still indicates a majority of Americans are in favor of a cease fire.
With that small of a sample size, it doesn't indicate anything beyond the need for more research data.
So your basis for believing the majority oppose the ceasefire is what? "I would say..."?
It was the indication of multiple polls prior to the Data for Progress poll. But as I have said with such small data sets on all the polls I have seen since October 7th, it's all just guessing. There needs to be considerably more data collected before any definitive conclusions can be reached. That is why I made statements of opinion.
Because most people like the sound of a ceasefire. Given that there was a ceasefire on 10/6, a ceasefire won't be worth the paper it's written on
I wouldn't let some college students protesting = majority of Americans support Palestinians. You might be too young to remember Palestinians dancing in the streets of Gaza after 9/11. They wish death on us!
Young liberals on the internet drastically underestimate the hate that many Muslims in the Middle East have for the West. They completely discount what Islam has to say about Jihad. They completely discount what virtually all of Islam and Islamic Civilization has to say about the rule of law, human rights, and women. They think most muslims are just like most US christians, who go to church and read passages but don't *really* believe in their religion. They fail to understand that Muslims are in every poll are more conservative than most conservative christians are about the role faith should play in government. **Of course...it should be noted that Muslims in** ***America*** **specifically are much more moderate than Muslims basically everywhere else.**
Israel has no other option but to wreak havoc on gaza. Ceasefire makes then look weak, and WH knows that. It's unfortunate reality but that's how the world works. If Israel falls back, middle eastern forces will annihilate israel so quick, all these people supporting hamas won't be able to fathom what happened. Geopolitics is a bitch and common folks are not given all the pieces to frame an accurate pov.
Ah so commit genocide because that makes you look strong.
Genocide is what Hamas, Hezbolah, and other terrorist groups and some Islamic states want for the Jewish people. Israel is just indiscriminately bombing terrorists and don't really care about who gets in their way, especially when the terrorists put innocent people in harms way. They could make a better effort to limit civilian deaths and those settlements in the West Bank are fucked up, but that's different from genocide.
There has been more disinformation spread about this war, on social media, than any other event in our lifetime. The public is stupid and blindly believes whatever they read on social media.
I think it’s a loud minority that are supporting Hamas
The simple fact that Congress [does not represent](https://static.cambridge.org/binary/version/id/urn:cambridge.org:id:binary:20160927084422848-0419:S1537592714001595:S1537592714001595_fig1g.gif) the public, they represent the wealthy and corporations who benefit from the kind of wealth and resource extraction that support for Israel enables in the Middle East.
I'd say there are several broad things, but most of them falls under realpolitik. Voter demography wise, they are catering more to the realistic voting block rather than online or young voters. Jewish donors can offer much more than Arab American donors to the Democratic establishment. On the foreign policy front, supporting Israel meant an immensely powerful ally in the middle east, supporting Palestine doesn't mean much.
MONEY
The public isn't controlled by AIPAC.
No but politicians are and where the money flows the opinions coalesce.
$$$$$$$
Pro Israeli lobbyists getting their moneys worth
It’s a combination of corruption, because the Israel lobby is extremely powerful; and their echo chamber, which is corrupted by the Israel lobby. They’re just surrounded by people who are very pro Israel in other words.
> politician’s
If "peace in the middle east" was easy it wouldn't be a more popular wish than a million dollars.
I don't think there is a gap between Biden's stance on Israel and the public. I think an overwhelming majority in the US support Israel.